The finance minister tried on Monday to change the version of what Bukele had announced, saying “no one would think” of spending the works budget in the first months of the year. For the political opposition, doing so would be unrealistic.
Members of the Legislative Assembly reacted on Monday to statements by President Nayib Bukele about trying to execute the entire 2021 funds earmarked for public works in just 4 months, and then ask for more money in the next Assembly.
“And so that the works do not stop, we will invest what we were allocated for the year, in 4 months,” the president wrote in a summary of a video on December 27 that explains which areas will be allocated the funds.
SEE: Bukele Government intends to spend the entire 2021 Public Works budget in four months and then ask for more money with new Assembly
This statement was later supported by the Minister of Public Works, Romeu Rodríguez, who stated in a radio interview: “As the President said, we will use the budget for the whole year in four months. Then, in the new Assembly We will ask for the necessary resources to be able to carry out works for the benefit of the country. “
According to parliamentarians, this would be illegal and they also stress that it is unrealistic.
FMLN MP Yanci Urbina said they apparently already regretted saying so.
“They are committing illegality then unfortunate illegality that what we are seeing is a government that what it is promoting is illegality,” he questioned.
In this regard, the deputy Margarita Escobar, from ARENA, stated that the General Budget of the Nation is annual and that it is planned in this way.
“If President Bukele decides to spend it in 4 months and with the hope that the next Assembly is going to give him another annual budget as it seems a bit unreal to me,” Escobar criticized.
For his part, PDC MP Rodolfo Parker explained that the documentation relating to the general budget is a set of decrees, and the Constitution requires it, the Constitutional Chamber has reaffirmed it. “The overall budget needs to be balanced and to be balanced the planned expenditures have to be borne with the respective funding,” Parker reasoned.
For his part, the President of the Assembly and deputy of the PCN, Mario Ponce, commented that “any use of resources in a whimsical way or want to somehow use the resources from May, June, July to December falls into embezzlement “.
“We in the very particular case of this state body, this server can not spend the funds, I have to spend nothing else January, February, March and April, I can not touch the funds of May. We can not spend “We have the resources for a whole year,” said Ponce.
However, on Monday, Finance Minister Alejandro Zelaya tried to change the version of what was announced by Bukele, saying that “no one would think” to spend the works budget in the first months of the year. “We should be crazy … it’s impossible,” he said.
ALSO: Executing 2021 works budget in 4 months is unrealistic and outlawed
At the time, the executive director of the National Development Foundation (Fon), Roberto Rubio, described this idea raised by the Government as “supine ignorance” because they do not understand that the only way to have another budget for the rest of the year, they still get to have a majority in the Assembly, is to increase revenue and this will only be done with debt.
For him, trying to spend the budget in 4 months is almost impossible, it is a sign of ignorance, “especially when it comes to a rather inept government that has not even been able to build the hospital El Salvador. It is not just a matter of money but of capacity “.