The president announced on Twitter that 75% of Fodes will be run by an institution created by the Executive. Mayors, including those from the New Ideas party, will have to ask for permission from a new state entity.
In a bombardment of Twitter announcements by President Nayib Bukele, of changes in his government officials, he also reported that he will send a proposal to the new Assembly for mayors to receive less money from the Fund for Economic and Social Development (Fucks) and that the resources be centralized in an institution of the State that will create to manage the public bottoms destined by Constitution to the municipalities.
Mayors will no longer receive 10% of the state’s current revenue, but 6%, Bukele explained on Twitter. In addition, a “National Directorate of Municipal Works” will be created with government funds, which will be responsible for approving the projects requested by the mayors.
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Practically, with this announcement, Bukele leaves his own elected mayors tied up, as the election results of last February 28 gave the party New Ideas, the political institute that Bukele considers the official, more than the 57% of the 262 mayors of the country.
“We will show (again) that much more can be done, with less. The money gets, when no one steals,” the president wrote.
The distribution of the Fucks would remain the same as provided in the current Fucks Act: 25% for operating expenses and 75% for works, however, mayors will not have the opportunity to decide which works are done and which no, it is all the councilors who know the needs of their communities up close.
The new Assembly that takes office on May 1, 2021 will be controlled mostly by deputies from the New Ideas party, so make a change in the law to fuck to reduce the percentage of it by 10% to 6% will be able to do it the Executive without any problem.
To carry out this reform only 43 votes are required and they have more than these. What the government cannot do is permanently withdraw the allocation of financial resources from the state for the functioning of the mayors, as this is enshrined in the Constitution of the Republic.
What President Bukele does not explain is where he will get the funds to create more bureaucracy with the new “National Directorate of Municipal Works”, given that by not transferring the money to the accounts of the mayors, this new institution will be the responsible for administering more and more millions of dollars of current state revenue coming from Salvadoran taxes.
The new National Direction announced by Bukele will be directed by Álvaro O’Byrne, current director of the FOVIAL.
The role played by the Municipal Development Institute (ISDEM), which is currently in charge of depositing the money sent to it by the Ministry of Finance monthly into the municipal accounts, is also drifting.
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Bukele’s announcement comes after a backlog that keeps the Treasury with municipalities of more than $ 300 million since the middle of last year.
The head of the branch, Alejandro Zelaya, has reiterated on numerous occasions that they have not paid because state finances do not arrive, but Bukele’s announcement hints that they are waiting for the new mayors to take over to make the payment effective.
From before the election and during the election campaign, opposition parties stated that the government did not transfer the Fodes to the mayors, because it used it as a “political tool” to leave them at an “electoral disadvantage”. “, combined with the fact that they were not given the advance of the political debt either.
“They would assassinate FODES, municipal autonomy and decentralization. Another spectacular institutional setback for our country,” criticized the mayor of San Salvador, Ernesto Muyshondt.