Proforma 2022 generates new controversy between Assembly and Executive for not including observations

A new controversy has arisen between the Assembly and the Executive, this time for the validity of the 2022 budget proforma and four-year programming. Yesterday, the plenary session of the Assembly was ratified with 96 votes in favor (more than two thirds) in five observations that it had presented to the Executive on the 2022 proforma, but that it had not accepted.

Observations have to do with “Review” the assignments made to Education, Health, universities, the prison sector and “specify” with more accurate figures how much it is intended to obtain with the issue of monetization of assets.

According to the Constitution, once the Government was ratified in its original proposal, the Assembly could in turn be ratified with two-thirds of the votes, which it did, having 96 votes. What is not clear is what happens next. This is because in article 295 it says verbatim: “The National Assembly, in the following ten days, may ratify its observations, in a single debate, with the vote of two-thirds of its members. Otherwise, the programming or proforma sent in second instance by the Executive Function will come into effect ”.

For the Assemblywoman Mireya Pazmiño, president of the Economic Regime Commission, the ratification of the Assembly means the approval of the proforma “with observations that the Executive should comply with.” However the The Ministry of Economy and Finance reported yesterday that “considering that neither the Constitution nor any Law foresees that the ratification in the Assembly’s observations implies any denial or impediment, Proforma 2022 will enter into force by the Law Ministry as sent by the Executive (without observations of the Assembly) ”.

The Constitutionalist Ismael Quintana acknowledged that Article 295 of the Constitution does not clearly state, since it is poorly written, what are the effects or legal consequences of the Assembly’s ratification in its observations on the proforma. And in this sense, there will be, as is already happening, two positions: from the Executive to say that there is no express pronouncement on the issue, and from the Assembly, to say that they must accept ratified observations with more than two-thirds of the votes. In this sense, he says it should be done an interpretation of the spirit of the rule.

For Quintana the spirit was that the Assembly also participate in the debate of the proforma. If he hadn’t wanted to, then I wouldn’t have given him this faculty. For Quintana, this position of the Government shows contempt for Article 295 of the Constitution. Additionally, it indicates that the only way that the Government had for the proforma to be published as it was sent for the second time was that the Assembly had not ratified its observations.

With the interpretation given by the Government, Quintana says, it turns out that if the assembly members do not get the votes to observe, the government’s proposal goes into effect, and if they do have the votes, then the government’s proposal is also published. This would mean that at least 40 days have been lost, on a theme that was going to have the same result, which is not logical.

With such a position, the Government generates a bad precedent for future governments and it also confirms the perception that it lacks legal advice, he says.

Prior to the debate, The president of the Commission, Mireya Pazmiño, had mentioned that in the proforma 2022 there is a decrease in the budget for Education and Health, and assured that the Government was comparing the items delivered with the codified budget until August. In his understanding, this meant that the Government had only compared what was executed up to August, with what was assigned for 2022. This assessment would be wrong because, during the appearances, it was explained to them by the Undersecretary of Budget, Olga Núñez, that the budget codified to August is not the one executed in August, but a kind of projection to December that is changing every month and that in the case of the comparison had been taken with cut to August.

Former minister of Economy, Fausto Ortiz, had explained through social networks that the observations made by the Assembly were not technically constructed, since they were not related to the items of income and expenses by sectors as the law says. In other words, they had to ask for a certain increase in one item but establish what was removed in another. Therefore, it considers that the observations are inapplicable.

On November 29, in its ratification of the proforma, the Government responded to each one of the observations, making more extensive explanations of what were the technical reasons for having assigned each of the amounts, and that in short, it was complying with matters of law.

In summary, the observations of the Assembly were:

1. “Review assignments” to the Education and Health sectors, to guarantee the respective annual increases established in the Constitution and to cover the demand for their services by citizens. However, for the Executive, the 0.5% increase in Health and Education is fulfilled this year.

2. “Review assignments or seek compensation”, to ensure that Universities and Polytechnic Schools expand their quotas and reactivate research. In the same vein, the Government said that the law was being complied with, in this case.

3. The Assembly also asked to “review the assignments” for the payment of pending retirement incentives, in order to progressively pay off the State debt to retirees. In this case, the Government had reminded the Assembly that the debt for retirement incentives dates from previous governments and that what was allocated this year was what fiscal sustainability allowed.

4. Additionally, it was asked to “review the assignments” for the financing of the national social rehabilitation system, “in order to achieve solutions for the prison crisis.” In this case, the Government also detailed everything assigned to prisons, within the possibilities allowed by the budget.

5. In the fifth point, the Assembly asked “to specify the amounts expected to be collected” and its annual schedule for each non-financial public asset that is scheduled for sale or monetization, as well as the procedures planned for that purpose. On this issue, the Government explained that the total of the five assets that would be close to being monetized: Refinería de Esmeraldas, Monteverde, Sopladora, Termogás Machala (four concessions) and Banco Pacífico (sale) are equivalent to $ 2,800 million, but not it is possible to know exactly which ones will enter this year. The Government plans to finance at least $ 900 million of the budget with monetization of assets.