The Ministry of Economy and Finance ensures that the legal order to increase 0.5% of GDP for Education is complied with
The The Assembly’s Education Commission approved a few minutes ago “unanimously by those present” (eight votes) a motion in which a supposed reduction of the budget for education is rejected, which would appear in the 2022 proforma. The motion is approved in the middle of the proforma treatment process that will be discussed this Thursday in the plenary session of the Assembly.
The approved text rejects “the constant values in the Pro forma of the General State Budget for the fiscal period 2022, for the sectors of education, higher education, intercultural bilingual education, culture, science, technology, innovation and ancestral knowledge.” In addition, the plenary is requested to observe this issue.
It is also resolved request the President of the Republic, Guillermo Lasso, to respect the budget that by constitutional mandate corresponds to the area of basic education and baccalaureate and they assure that 0.5% of GDP should amount to $ 5,172.65 million. This calculation is made by taking the 2020 General State Budget codified as of December 31 of the same year, in accordance with the provisions of article 107 of the Organic Code of Planning and Public Finance.
This criterion is contradicted by the numbers that the Government has officially managed. The Assembly can only approve or observe the proforma and could even change certain assignments, but without altering the total of it.
The Ministry of Economy and Finance has maintained that for fiscal year 2022 the GDP has been estimated at $ 109,618.57 million. 0.5% of this is $ 548 million. Hence, the budget for initial, basic and high school education amounts to $ 554.73 million, “an item that reflects the increase in accordance with current legal regulations,” says the Ministry.
However, the president of the Commission, Manuel Medina, explained that the budget for education should be increasing by 0.5% of GDP every year until it reaches 6% of GDP. According to Medina, there is no budget increase, as the Government says, but a strong reduction. According to their numbers, the budget in the 2020 proforma was $ 5,565 million, while for the 2022 proforma a budget of $ 4,861 million has been established. So your estimate is that it is down 12.7%.
The legislators Amparo Rocío Guanoliza, Ana María Raffo, Mariuxi Sánchez, Isabel María Enríquez, Edwin Frías Borja, Fernando Esparza, Darwin Pereira and the speaker Manuel Medina himself voted in favor of the motion.
This statement by the Commission, which will be announced in the midst of the proforma debate this Thursday, is added to one of the six observations made by the Economic Regime Commission, which analyzed the budget. The Regime Commission had established among its observations a request to the Executive of “Review the allocations of the health and education sectors, in order to guarantee the respective annual increases established in the Constitution of the Republic, and mainly to cover the permanent increase in demand for their services by citizens.”
About the topic, Jaime Carrera, executive secretary of the Fiscal Policy Observatory (OPF), explained what the problems are whereby The constitutional increase of 0.5% of GDP for health and education has never been fulfilled. He recalled that in 2008 the Constitution established that this increase should be given. In that year, the budget for education and health represented 3.1% and 1.4%, respectively. So, he says, The logical thing would have been that until 2014 in education and until 2013 in health, it would have reached 6% and 4%, respectively. He recalled that those years were the years with the highest income for the treasury.
The problem is that the correct calculation was not made from the beginning. Always 0.5% of GDP was added, when the correct thing to do was to bring the total figure to 0.5% more of GDP. That is, for example, if in 2020 the education budget reached 4.5% of GDP, in 2021 it should have reached 5% of GDP and in 2020 it should reach 5.5% of GDP. This last figure is $ 6.029 million.
However, this ideal scenario runs up against the real possibilities of the treasury. If this total item were given to education, the Assembly should also suggest which sectors should be reduced to compensate for this rise in education.
Tomorrow, The plenary session of the Assembly must know this and five other observations that the Economic Regime Commission prepared in its report, as well as four requirements. (I)
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