2025 begins and the Bogotá Treasury Secretariat has everything ready to launch the city’s budget in this period, after approval from the District Council, where it was set at $38.4 billion; with a view to boosting investment, although without neglecting that austerity has been a priority for Mayor Galán.
In a conversation with Portafolio, Ana María Cadena, Secretary of the Treasury, said that the squeezes on the debt quota that occurred at the beginning of the year have already been largely overcome, but that they will maintain their vision of reducing expenses where possible, without affecting to the people, to have more investment resources for the future.
How are the budget accounts?
The budget for 2025 amounted to $38.4 billion, of which 81%, that is, $31.3 billion, correspond to investment resources, 13%, that is, a little more than $5 billion, are for operation, and 5 %, which is $2 billion, corresponds to debt service.
This means that the budget for next year grew 13% percent compared to the one that is in force at the moment, but the most important thing there is to understand that this growth responds to a rebound in investment, which is growing 15% and It is very important because it is investment resources that allow us to drive economic growth and reactivate the economy.
La Candelaria – Bogotá.
Courtesy – API
Are debt and operations also growing?
Operations are growing less, by 11%, and debt service is falling by 3%. So it is a budget that grows, that grows in a healthy way, and that grows above all through growth in investment.
Has the debt squeeze already been overcome?
We brought a proposal to the Bogotá Council to approve a new debt quota and that was achieved. That is why we were able to expand the budgetary space in the investment. I told you that the investment grew by 15% and that has to do with the fact that we were able to have this new quota of investment debt.
Much of this growth was achieved thanks to the Council’s vote of confidence, which now translates into more money to bring development to the people of Bogotá.
What will be the main spending fronts?
There are two ways to do this analysis, the first is to see which investment sectors are growing the most, because that tells us about the priorities that the District Development Plan has, and there I am going to mention three specifically, first the security sector, that investment is growing 43%. It is the first time that the total expenditure, the total budget of the security sector, exceeds one trillion pesos.
The second has to do with the economic reactivation sectors, in particular habitat, where a very ambitious housing and economic development program is being led, in addition to all the employment generation programs, work formalization and support for companies, followed by the environmental sector, whose investment increased by 35%.
Ana María Cadena, Secretary of the Treasury of Bogotá
Courtesy.
Is social spending maintained?
It is very important to understand that these high levels of growth are accompanied by an equally significant effort to preserve social spending, which increased significantly during the pandemic, the most critical moment not only for the city, but for the world in terms of poverty.
Thus, we are managing to maintain that social spending that was implemented in the most difficult period, understanding that it is now a structural part of the city’s budget. This allows us to place emphasis on key sectors while protecting and strengthening social support, as the mayor of Bogotá has recently pointed out, highlighting that such spending is essential to serve the poorest and most vulnerable population.
Has austerity ended or is it continuing?
Austerity, for Mayor Carlos Fernando Galán, is not conceived as a period or a specific issue, but as a guiding principle of his administration. His focus is to implement a policy of constant austerity during the four years of his mandate.
From the beginning, as you mentioned, decree 062 was implemented, which included concrete austerity measures and allowed the reduction of around one hundred and forty billion pesos in service provision contracts, which strengthened the health sector, which then urgently required a budget reinforcement. This approach must be maintained.
Is it in these accounts?
The entire budget programming exercise that we carried out for the year 2025, and that we will continue in the following years, is based on these austerity guidelines. Soon, we will issue clear guidelines to district entities to continue reducing expenses that do not directly impact the well-being of citizens. Our priority is to channel resources to areas where they generate the greatest benefit for the population, reducing those items that do not have a significant impact.
Where will they cut from?
Within decree 062, which I mentioned previously, we have identified a series of spending concepts that are subject to adjustments with the purpose of optimizing resources without affecting the well-being of citizens. These include per diem and travel expenses, events and commemorations, as well as items related to telephony, vehicles, photocopying, printing, advertising and petty cash. These adjustments seek to guarantee a more efficient and responsible administration.
Likewise, savings have been contemplated in public services, maintenance and subscriptions, among others. These measures are part of a comprehensive strategy aimed at reducing costs in areas that do not directly impact the quality of life of citizens.
The Government gave way to a Private-PPP to carry out the expansion works on the access roads in the north of Bogotá.
Private file
Our objective is to maximize available resources to prioritize investments that generate tangible and sustainable benefits for the population, while maintaining austere and efficient management of public resources.
Your growth projection in Bogotá for 2025?
We have observed that little by little the economic growth of the city has been recovering and we hope that the positive streak will continue during the year 2025. That inflation will continue to behave towards the goal of the Bank of the Republic, and in that sense Well, we expect Bogotá to have a growth of around 3%.
