What will happen to contracts for the provision of services with the State?

Due to the “abuse” that the figure of contracts for the provision of services in public entitiesthe Government of Gustavo Petro wants to limit them and that only those that are aimed at carrying out specific and specialized tasks, which are for an established period of time, are really used.

(Read: Social security for taxi drivers and other agreements with the Government).

For this reason, the country’s public entities are currently carrying out an employment formalization plan and, once completed, they could make decisions regarding the contractors: if they continue or on the contrary not, because they do not meet the conditions.

In total, according to the Public Function, for the validity of 2022 911,440 service provision contracts were signed, which would be those that are currently being analyzed. Of these, 573,758 corresponded to entities of the territorial order and 337,682 of the national order.

The entities that signed the largest number of service provision contracts nationwide in 2022 were the National Apprenticeship Service (Sena), with 31,380; followed by the Colombian Institute of Family Welfare, with 6,021; and the National University, with another 5,841 contracts.

In the case of territorial entities, those with the largest service provision contracts were the Mayor’s Office of Cali, with 9,375; followed by the District Secretariat for Social Integration of Bogotá, with 6,600; and the integrated Health Services Subnetwork south west of Bogotá, with 5,171 contracts.

(In addition: National Budget of 2022, with $12.5 billion unexecuted).

Therefore, these entities are the ones that have to do the most work internally to verify if these contracts are in line or not with this figure designed for exceptional cases.

The directive of the Administrative Department of the Public Function is clear: that they remain linked by provision of services Only workers deemed essential.

For César Manrique, director of Public Function, in the last three decades there has been abused of the use of the figure to carry out permanent work in public entities.

According to a circular, public entities have until April to carry out the necessary technical studies with which to establish a staff plant that really meets their missionary and administrative needs.

After that date, in the event that the studies determine the need to reform the internal organizational structure of the public entitythey must propose the reorganization that is required.

(Keep reading: Lag in the transfer of subsidies worries the country’s construction sector).

The Civil Service warned that the formalization of public employment It will be promoted taking into account four mechanisms: the provision of all the positions of the existing and vacant personnel plants; the expansion of the existing personnel plants, provided that the technical and financial conditions so allow; the creation of temporary plants in equity, with meritocratic criteria and vocation of permanence; and the rational use of contracts for the provision of services, exclusively attending to what is established by law and in court rulings.

The Civil Service gave the entities 4 months to formalize employment. Given this, the Attorney General’s Office warned that it is a short time and requested exhaust the various instances to adjust the personnel plants and prevent the lack of officials from generating a paralysis of the State at all levels.

(See: Government vs. Fedegán: the hectares that generate ‘clashes’ between the two).

Similarly, the Delegate for Labor and Social Security Affairs pointed out that entities cannot be left “without the necessary and suitable personnel to meet the demand for the services they provide to the public” and indicated that the territorial entities have autonomy to advance the procedures regarding personnel plants.

NOELIA CIGÜENZA RIAÑO
ECONOMY AND BUSINESS-WEATHER