Ultimatum from the Court to the Ministry of Health: orders payment of maximum budgets

The Constitutional Court opened this Tuesday a contempt incident against the Minister of Health and Social Protection, Guillermo Alfonso Jaramilloas a result of non-compliance in the payment of the maximum budgets to the health promoting entities (EPS) of the country.

According to the Special Chamber for Follow-up to Sentence T-760 of 2008the National Government, through the portfolio, has not transferred the monies recognized as readjustment of the limits of the validity of 2022, valued at 819,000 million pesos.

(Besides: Criticism of the declaration of shock and economic emergency: ‘a legal nonsense’).

According to the high court, “(…) despite the fact that the Superior Council of Fiscal Policy (Confis) on December 26, 2023 authorized that these be canceled from the debt service of the General Budget of the Nation for the period 2024, the Ministry of Finance has not transferred the resources, so the third ordinal of Auto 2881 of 2023 has not been fulfilled“.

He also mentions that “The provisions of the sixth ordinal of Auto 2881 of 2023 were not complied with, since more than six months have passed since the notification, the unified methodology for the definition and readjustment of the maximum budgets has not been created.“.

(Read also: What the Government can do when declaring shock and economic emergency).

As a result of the above, in addition to opening the contempt order against Minister Jaramillo, The Constitutional Court also ordered the respective payment of these budgets to be made within 48 hours after notification..

Giving more detail about the validity of 2024, the Chamber warned of the definancing of the mechanism, therefore, “Despite the different additions to the budgeted value, the allocated resources were not enough to pay the maximum budgets for the second half of 2024“, adding that these shortcomings still persist, since they continue to be defined during the same term.

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The orders to the Ministry of Health

1. Pay the maximum budgets recognized for the periods July, August, September and October 2024.

2. Recognize the maximum budgets corresponding to the periods of November and December 2024, which must occur no later than January 30, 2025.

3. Pay the maximum budgets corresponding to each of the months of 2025 within the first 15 days of each period. The payment corresponding to the months of January and February must be made within the last 10 days of the month of February.

Likewise, he also ordered the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit transfer the necessary resources for the Health and Social Protection portfolio to comply with the payment of the maximum budgets in the established terms.

PORTFOLIO