This is an extension of the Budget 2023. The measure had been made official on December 26 through decree 88/2023, published the next day in the Official Gazette. It is the fourth time that an action of this nature has been resorted to so far in the 21st century, if it is taken into account that extensions to the calculation of expenses and resources from the previous year were also applied in 2011, 2020 y 2022.
The extension of the Budget is a possibility contemplated in Law 24,156 of Financial Administration, which in its article 27 enables this option “if at the beginning of the financial year the general Budget is not approved.” The Minister of Economy, Luis Caputo, had already announced it on December 13.
“Given the progress of the 2023 Budget Year, It is not possible to define with immediacy and precision the adjustments referred to in article 27 of the aforementioned Law. (in reference to 24,156), therefore these will be carried out in a timely manner,” the decree indicated in its recitals when justifying the extension.
Article 2 instructs the Chief of Staff to “adjust, in a timely manner, the budget that is extended through article 1 of this decree in order to comply with paragraphs 1 and 2 of article 27 of the Law of Financial Administration and Control Systems of the National Public Sector No. 24,156 and its amendments.”
The inclusion of “its amendments” refers to all the expansions and reallocations of expenses and resources arranged throughout the year, through decrees of necessity and urgency and administrative decisions for more than $11 billion. According to the analysis of the Congressional Budget Office (OPC), Law 27,701 established an initial budget credit of 28 billion 954,031 million pesos and the one in force as of December 28, after the last budget modification, amounted to 40 billion 411,433 million, with an increase of 39.6% compared to the initial authorization.
The Financial Administration Law details a series of “adjustments that the National Executive Branch must introduce” which, in the case of resources, consist of eliminating items that cannot be collected again, suppressing income from public credit operations that have already been used, including resources from other credit operations in execution and excluding surpluses from the previous exercises.
Regarding expenses, Credits that should not be repeated are eliminated because the purposes for which they were intended have been fulfilled; credits corresponding to debt service and quotas that must be contributed by international commitments are included.as well as the credits “essential to ensure the continuity and efficiency of services.”
In this regard, the president of the Argentine Association of Budget and Public Financial Administration (ASAP), Gonzalo Lecuona, exemplified: “If resources were contemplated to pave a route and the work has already been done, obviously it is not paved again and those resources are left for the Executive Branch to define what it is going to use them for.”
In the same sense, the expenditures provided for in the 2023 Budget Law corresponding to the electoral process of the ending year are not extended either, and the resources that were allocated for this purpose will be redistributed.
2024-01-01 16:49:18
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