The former finance minister, Helio Fallas, only thought about the budget for the first semester of 2018, specifically for the payment of the debt. In fact, on Tuesday morning the Comptroller General of the Republic, Marta Acosta, informed the legislators that -to January this year- the Government had already executed 77% of what it had budgeted to pay debt.
This was explained in the Treasury Commission after the consultation by legislator David Gourzong, from the National Liberation Party (PLN). The hierarch went to the Legislative Assembly to defend the need to approve the first extraordinary budget for 600 billion colones whose purpose is to amortize debt.
Acosta explained that by June 90% had already been used for the amortization of short-term securities, that is, the Ministry of Finance only considered monetary needs for the first half of 2018.
The hierarch reported that they detected these levels of execution and therefore asked the Treasury what was happening, however, they responded through the Central Bank with the extraordinary budget request.
That is why Acosta requested the approval of the first extraordinary budget, presented by the Treasury before the Legislative Assembly for 600 billion colones, to face the debts. In fact, 182 billion colones were already used without permission, to meet these expenses.
If the request was not approved, Acosta warned that there would be no money to pay debt and therefore, they would have to choose to seek resources in the amount budgeted for public investment funds, which would lead to a “noxious budget”.
Regarding the gap in the budget, Acosta said they are conducting an investigation to determine what happened.