To confront the public order crisis in Catatumbo, the National Government will resort to declaring internal commotion. This was reported by the Minister of the Interior, Juan Fernando Cristo, who also stated, that it will not be necessary to declare a state of economic emergency as initially planned.
(Read: The state of economic emergency will not be declared for now, according to Mininterior).
It should be noted that two days ago, President Petro had announced that he would use both figures to confront the situation in that region of the country.
However, the Government chose to discard one of them after criticism about the unconstitutionality of decreeing both figures at the same time.
What faculties did he reject?
Having resorted to the economic emergency, The figure allowed the Executive to have additional resources, through new taxes or modifying existing ones.
Likewise, it could redirect resources from other spending items towards military expenses or for humanitarian care, and have resources coming from specific tax allocations, such as royalties, of which it could have up to 10%.
(Also: They reactivate arrest warrants against ELN peace negotiators).
This instrument also empowered the President to decree new taxes without the need for them to go through Congress, and for the resources obtained to be used by the Ministry of Defense or the Victims Unit.
This extraordinary power to manipulate public finances caused concern at a time of budget crisis, which the president has attributed to the shipwreck of the Financing Law in Congress.
Some voices warned about the possible misuse of the exception figure to cover the fiscal deficit, while the Government tried to overcome the reduction in spending.
(Besides: ‘The ELN has chosen the path of war and it will have war’: President Petro).
“The most important thing is that the President does not use these states of exception to resolve the fiscal problems of the National Government. He should not take advantage of the pain and tragedy of the inhabitants of Catatumbo to promote a tax reform that Congress has already rejected. The country must “Be attentive and make sure that these measures are exclusively for this population.”warned the former Minister of Finance, Mauricio Cárdenas.
PORTFOLIO
With information Justice EL TIEMPO
