Minister of Finance Rocío Aguilar confirmed before the Commission of Control of Income and Public Expenditure that the previous government had enough data to have presented an extraordinary budget and thus avoid the fiscal gap this year.
This contradicts last week’s statements by former president Luis Guillermo Solís, who told the same commission there were not enough data and calculations to present an extraordinary budget that would prevent the “shortage” of resources this year.
On Thursday, Aguilar said that the amount discovered was known since the end of 2017 and that there was no obstacle to submit an extraordinary budget.
Aguilar referenced the executive decree published by Solís in March 2018, which changed the allocation of resources destined to pay long-term debt to cover short-term debt.
This, added to a lower economic growth and low collection, caused the fiscal gap during 2018. Legislators such as Jonathan Prendas from National Restoration calculate the shortfall already amounts to 1.2 billion.