Global Courant
Who with three fingers of a brain and a debt of Q214 thousand considers paying Q20 thousand in a year but without reducing their expenses and, on the contrary, increasing some, for which they start lending another Q13 thousand? Under such figures, he will end up owing, if he is doing well, and if not, he ends up spending more, and if he is not robbed, around Q207 thousand, of course, not including interest. However, those are the calculations, but in billions of quetzales, on which the first draft of the preliminary draft of the 2024 Budget is proposed, which would reach an amount of Q124 billion, which exceeds inflation by Q9 billion, sterile and opaque spending plan for the current year.
With the usual indifference, indifferent inertia and irresponsible indolence typical of bureaucrats, the Ministry of Finance presented such a projection, which includes the request for loans for Q3 thousand 334 million and issuance of bonds for more than Q10 billion while they would be paid, supposedly , Q20 thousand 778 million to the payment of the public debt, which is currently at Q214 thousand million, yes, that debt that corresponds to each Guatemalan, including those who are yet to be born, at a rate of almost Q12 thousand per person.
The alleged spending, drawn according to the wishes of each ministry and state agency, will be executed by the next government, for which it would be prudent, appropriate, and recommendable to involve those who are elected for the second round of elections. Based on polls, history itself, and the overwhelming multiplication of candidates, it is unlikely that anyone will get half plus one of all valid votes. In the last days of the electoral campaign, a presidential plea against such waste would be well worth it.
What is serious, what is worrying and what is disastrous is that operating expenses continue to be prioritized far above investment for human development, productivity and competitiveness. Despite all his claims in four campaigns, the president Giammattei Falla ended up doing the same thing he criticized: increasing expenses, including those of entities that he lashed out during the campaign and promised to disappear. From the start, all that remains is for him to boast of leaving some funds to whoever succeeds him, as well as obligated debts behind the backs of taxpayers such as payments to alleged ex-military personnel or salary increases in Congress, the Judiciary and the harmful teachers’ pact signed by hidden in 2022.
It is foreseeable that in a Congress of purges, a panorama whose proportion will be defined on June 25, the popularly called “Hidalgo law” will predominate. The budgetary discussion, by itself contaminated by clientelist criteria, interest pacts and rigging under the table, becomes a buffet of assignments and business tying for contracting deputies and relatives, something about which the Comptroller General of Accounts and the Ministry Public should have special monitoring, although in the meantime they are threatened with reducing their budget if they audit.
The amount of the 2024 budget should not exceed that in force this year, and the opinions for new credits should not be issued so easily by the Monetary Board, even though the current president of the Banco de Guatemala has been the head of Finance for almost three years. Whoever remains and whoever goes to the ballot, it is time to put an end to disorder and waste. The commitments in this line can mark ballots as well.
Addicted to throwing away other people’s money and even borrowing
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