The 2026 Investment Budget, for $88.4 billion, was presented by the Government as a triumph of territorial planning. However, after its approval in the second debate, the rain of criticism from different political and regional sectors shows that the consensus is, at least, apparent and that behind the figures and discourses of territorial equity, doubts persist about the true capacity of State execution in the regions and on the way in which resources were distributed.
As soon as the General Budget of the Nation for 2026 was approved, from the Department National Planning Agency (DNP) insisted that the regionalization process represents a historic advance and according to its director, Natalia Irene Molina Posso, the budget “is the result of great teamwork led by President Gustavo Petro, the Ministry of Finance and other entities, focused on the historically excluded majorities.”
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For this official, we must not overlook that 2026 spending has a technical, rigorous and socially fair orientation, which prioritizes public investment as a driver of equity and social cohesion and they highlighted that the money must transform the territories, in a joint effort with the National Government, which reinforces their autonomy.
“The figures support it on paper. Of the $88.4 billion investment, 74% was regionalized, that is, identified by department, while 24.4% remain as projects of national impact and 1.6% still to be assigned. All this with the objective of making visible how national programs They directly benefit the departments, strengthening decentralized planning,” they indicated.
Once again, the regions claim that important resources are being cut.
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A centralized distribution
When reviewing the breakdown of how this money will be distributed next year, it must be said that in this scheme, the departments with the greatest participation are Bogotá, with $8.7 billion; Antioquia, with $6.8 billion; Valle del Cauca, with $4.2 billion; Bolívar, with $3.2 billion; and Cundinamarca, with $3.1 billion. These five regions concentrate a third of the total territorial investment.
In contrast, the Amazonian departments such as Vaupés, Guainía, Vichada and Amazonas barely They reach a joint participation close to 1.5%, which reflects that the geographical gaps remain wide despite the effort to redistribute resources; highlighting that more resources will be allocated to the most remote areas.
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“With this budget, investment will be strengthened in strategic sectors that will promote regional development, job creation and productive transformation. Among the sectors with the greatest resources is Transportation, with $15.6 billion destined to improve secondary and tertiary roads, build and modernize airports, river terminals and advance rail transportation,” they noted.
In this amount, more than $3.2 billion will also be allocated to the Agriculture sector, to strengthen production in the countryside, improve access to land and guarantee financing for small and medium-sized producers, and $32.2 billion will focus on education, health, housing and social inclusion.
Once again, the regions claim that important resources are being cut.
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In addition, $10.1 billion is projected for Mines and Energy and $1 billion for the Environment, with the purpose of promote the fair energy transition and the recovery of strategic ecosystems such as the Amazon.
They didn’t convince at all
Although the Petro government points out that this budget is a great advance, the reading in Congress and in the territories is much less optimistic, given that the opposition groups and some coalition congressmen warned that the budget, far from decentralizing, recentralizes spending by increasing the proportion of resources labeled as “national”, whose execution depends directly on the ministries and not on the local governments.
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Senator Carlos Fernando Motoa, from Cambio Radical, was one of the first to raise his voice and denounced that Antioquia suffered a cut of $182 billion compared to the initial version, while the Nation’s budget grew by $3.6 billion, so “it is not understood that congressmen from the most affected departments have accompanied it with their vote. This text reduces resources for housing and agriculture, and eliminates key sections such as per capita distribution by department.”
Senator Alfredo Deluque, of the U Party, joined Motoa’s criticism, stating that the project “turns its back on the regions” and reflects the financial crisis of the National Government; arguing that “after three years and two months, they continue to blame the past to justify their lack of results. This was supposed to be the Government of change, but nothing changed.”
Once again, the regions claim that important resources are being cut.
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From the south of the country, discontent was also felt strongly. Representative Juan Daniel Peñuela, from Nariño, described the cuts to his department’s budget as “alarming”, mainly due to the 54% drop in agriculture and environment, 77% in sports, 19% in education and 57% in housing.
Given this, he made it clear that “without a clear explanation, it is impossible to vote in favor of this budget. Nariño and all regions deserve respect, not aggressive cuts in fundamental sectors.”
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For her part, representative Juliana Aray, of the Conservative Party, made a more nuanced reading and although he recognized that Bolívar appears as the fourth department with the highest national investment, with $3.28 billion allocated, he warned that the low ministerial execution could leave the projects in the air.
“It is one thing to announce resources and quite another to execute them. The ministries are not meeting the efficiency that the regions need,” said the congresswoman, who pointed out that part of the resources depend on fiscal sources conditional on reforms not yet approved, which generates uncertainty about their actual disbursement.
Once again, the regions claim that important resources are being cut.
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In this way, the claim is repeated in several voices; pointing out that the allocation figures do not automatically translate into development, since the regions denounce that strategic projects are announced without firm budget support, and that ministries concentrate execution, weakening territorial autonomy.
Thus, the difference between the “regionalized” budget and the “executed” budget thus becomes the main source of distrust; given that behind this diagnosis lies one of the greatest challenges of Colombian fiscal policy and that is the institutional capacity to execute resources in the territories, since it is of little use to allocate large figures if contracting processes, administrative bottlenecks and the lack of local co-financing end up slowing down public works.
DANIEL HERNÁNDEZ NARANJO
Portfolio Journalist
