The Ministry of Finance published the execution report for the 2021 General Budget of the Nation (PGN) with a cutoff to the third quarter, which shows how during the past year a total of $20.18 billion in appropriated resources remained uncommitted.
(Execution of the PGN for 2021 was at 83.6% as of November).
According to the Ministry report, of $343.9 billion that had been approved for the term of 2021, $323.78 billion were committed, which implies an execution balance of 94.1% of the total committed resources compared to the appropriate ones.
Within the PGN, in addition to the appropriate resources, which refer to the maximum spending authorizations that Congress approves to be executed or committed during the respective fiscal period, and the assigned resources, which are those commitments acquired that must be developed in the fiscal validity, there are two other components.
The first is the obligations, which are the amount owed as a result of the development of the acquired commitments, and that for last year’s budget were $300.29 billion; and the second, which are the commitments acquired in relation to payments, as well as the disbursements corresponding to the resources contracted with the budget, and which according to the 2021 balance reached $299.37 billion.
(Duque sanctioned PGN 2022, with a change in the Guarantee Law included).
According to the document, the balance of obligations against appropriated resources was 87.3%, while that of payments against total appropriated resources was 87%.
“A 6% pending is not really much, that percentage is small, and to be fair to the Government it is important to recognize that we are in an emergency”, explained Juan Oviedo, public finance adviser of the Javeriana University Fiscal Observatory, who mentioned that national accounts are complicated, and generally there are assigned resources that are not spent.
Oviedo highlighted that the information published in this balance sheet as current appropriation is not the same as that approved in the budget in 2021, but rather includes some additions such as unused resources from the Emergency Mitigation Fund (Fome) for the year 2020, and the addition of $10 billion built into last year’s tax reform.
PROGRESS BY SECTORS
As for the budget allocation by sectors, some registered a higher advance than others. The one with the highest execution in relation to the committed resources compared to the appropriate ones, which reached 100% according to the report, since Of $48.09 billion that the sector had allocated for the term of 2021, $48.07 billion were executed, and $17,111 million remained uncommitted.
This is followed by housing, city and territory, which had a total budget of $5.97 billion and committed $5.94 billion of this total, with which it reached an execution rate of 99.5%. That same balance of execution was achieved by health and social protection, with $43.55 billion committed out of a total of $43.76 billion allocated for the term.
As soon as The percentage of execution of the committed resources compared to appropriations also highlights Science, Technology and Innovation (99%), the Presidency of the Republic, the labor sector (98.4%) as well as the defense sector (98.1 %).
On the other hand, among the fronts with a lower balance is that of public employment, which for the term of 2021 had $501,248 million in assigned resources, of which $310,198 million were committed, a total execution of 61.9% of the appropriations against to commitments. In the case of Planning, which in 2021 had $1.56 billion and commitments of $1.03 billion, an execution balance of 66.2%.
(The entities with the lowest and highest budget execution).
The statistical information sector achieved an execution balance of 69.8% in relation to its committed resources, which were $426,956 million, out of a total of $611,503 million allocated.
“There are dynamics that are not homogeneous in all sectors of the national budget, if you look at the budget in detail, there are around 300 items that have zero commitments,” indicated the investigator of the Javeriana Fiscal Observatory, who pointed out that “Some sectors have difficult executions due to the pandemic and due to certain restrictions they could not execute their resources.”
LAURA LUCIA BECERRA ELEJALDE
