The Third and Fourth Joint Economic Commissions of the Senate of the Republic and the House of Representatives approved the General Budget of the Nation by 2027, for an amount of 634.9 billion pesos.
After this first endorsement, the bill will continue its process in the plenary sessions of the House of Representatives and the Senate of the Republic during the next few days.
“This is a very difficult budget. It took a lot of courage so that the parliamentarians would support it, given the political costs they are assuming,” said the Minister of Finance, Miguel Gomez.
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Ministers Rodrigo Lara and Miguel Gómez in Congress. Photo:MinInterior.
The official also thanked Congress for its support of the Republic and ratified that the National Government will work with “a lot of emphasis” facing final approval in the second debate.
For his part, the Minister of the Interior, Rodrigo Lara, highlighted the message of responsibility fiscal that is sent to the country, pointing out that there is a clear awareness on the part of the Congress of the Republic and the National Government about the real figures and the deficit facing the Nation.
“This is the result of having opened up the budget, as the National Government did. The first step to solve the tax problem, make Colombia grow and walk towards a balance of our finances was to tell them the truth to Colombians,” Lara added.
The movements in the Budget
During the discussions in the Joint Economic Commissions, an additional 2 billion were approved for the sector Health and Social Protection. The addition seeks to strengthen insurance against challenges such as population aging, increases in the prices of medicines and supplies, and the adoption of new medical technologies.
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Photo:iStock
In addition, 100,000 million were allocated of pesos to the Judicial Branch to cover personnel shortages linked to the adjustment of the judicial bonus, and 99.1 billion pesos for Sports and Recreationoriented to the training of athletes, high performance and support for national sports glories.
To finance these increases, the project contemplates downward readjustments in other areas. The main cut falls on the Comprehensive System of Truth, Justice, Reparation and Non-Repetitionwith a reduction of 170,000 million of pesos: 30,000 million pesos in operation and 140,000 million pesos in investment.
According to the presentation, this adjustment responds to fiscal austerity criteria and prioritization of spending; However, the document specifies that the resources required for the missionary work of the JEP are fully guaranteed.
Finally, the budget adjustment reduced 15.6 billion pesos of an investment project Civil Aeronautics (associated with contributions for the Café Airport) and 13,500 million pesos to the budget of National Planning.
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Minister of Finance, Miguel Gómez, defends the General Budget of the Nation 2027 in Congress Photo:Laura Juliana Castellanos Guevara
Alert for cuts in the JEP
During the session Judge Raúl Sánchez intervenedwho expressed his deep concern for the reduction of 170,000 million of pesos planned for the entity’s budget in 2027.
“It would be the first time in history in which a public entity is submitted to bankruptcy, where the victims they stop receiving attention that they have been receiving and security is no longer guaranteed to those appearing before the JEP,” he warned.
The magistrate even warned that with this adjustment there would be no resources nor to finance the current headquarters of the entity, which would force the JEP to convert in “a kind of virtual jurisdiction.”
This was the vote of the articulated
First block:
- Articles: 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 53, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 67, 68, 69, 70, 72, 73, 74, 75, 77, 78 and 79.
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Photo:iStock
Second block:
- Articles with propositions without endorsement: 2, 4, 6, 19, 21, 23, 29, 51, 52, 54, 66, 71, 76, 80, 81, 82, 83, 85 and 86.
Third block:
- Two proposals that modify article 2related to an addition of 500,000 million pesos for the Sena and new resources for the control entities in the country.
- Article 20, just as it comes in the presentation.
- Three new article proposals that raise additional resources for the Citizen Security and Coexistence Fund, budgetary autonomy for the National Electoral Council and the redistribution of resources for the operation of the Congress of the Republic.
Final vote:
- Article 87 on validity and derogations
- Tproject title de law dthe 2027 Budget
