Fiscal cash or treasury deposits, which are part of international reserves, reached only $270 million at the end of August last year. The figure is very low when compared to the $1,642 million that was in the same account in August 2022. Although on September 8, this account stood at $533 million. The fiscal money situation shows weakness.

According to Jaime Carrera, executive secretary of the Observatory for Fiscal Policy (OPF), the public fund is “on its own, without resources”. The balance has increased in recent weeks, since a loan from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) arrived and “with that they were able to pay salaries”. To better understand the problem, compare the fiscal pool situation to that of a family that earns $500 but ends up with about $20 at the end of the month, even though it borrowed $50 during the month. So he is desperate for money .next month’s salary.

He explains that this item of government deposits is fed by taxes paid monthly, as well as funds that come from oil and foreign loans. However, they also decrease due to payments, such as wages, goods and services, which must be made abroad, especially foreign debt.

For Albert Acosta Burne, the fiscal situation is worrying: “It’s very tight.” He explains that the amount in the box is not enough for what he has in a month, so debts are piling up in the cash register. Remember that arrears have risen to $1.7 billion. This situation occurs because revenues are lower and expenses continue to rise.

This indicates that the low position of this account is one of the symptoms of the fiscal problems faced by the Government. It is a mistake to think that liquidity can be used when there are delays. He clarifies that the currently existing budget is undersubscribed due to a lack of funds. For Acosta Burneo, it is important to see what the usual state of this account was in the previous months, in order to have a clear idea of ​​the size of the reduction.

If you look at the same central bank’s Weekly Monetary Bulletin, you can see that the Treasury deposit account average was $9.238 million between January and August 2022. That gives an average of $1.155 million per month. However, from January to August 2023, revenues in the same period (from January to August) were slightly more than half, or 4,933 million dollars, which represents an average of 601 million dollars. Practically half.

Acosta explains that the government requires about $1.7 billion a month in current spending; and in capital expenditure about 321 million dollars per month. That is, about 2,000 million dollars are needed, and we have to take into account that in December the expenses for salaries will double. Treasury account funds are “transferable money, and that’s very little,” he says.

The director of the central bank Guillermo Avellán himself admitted that there are about 300 million dollars in the account, and that this is money that the Ministry of Finance can use. He said this during an interview for Teleamazonas in which he spoke about the intention to use the international reserve collected by the two last candidates in the race for the President of the Republic.

He explained that in this reserve there are deposits of banks and cooperatives (cash) that are used to insure citizens’ deposits. Also money from Ecuadorian Social Security Institute (IESS), Biess, Decentralized Autonomous Government (GAD), among others.

Avellán also clarified that the reserve is not for investment, but to respond to different needs, such as the case of accumulation of deposits. And he assured that the abuse of reserves, like that in previous governments, could create risks for dollarization.

In any case, the bill can increase as a result of several factors. For example, if the price of crude oil rises, there will be more resources.