The Budget and Public Account Commission approved the opinion of reforms with which it seeks to allocate the savings derived from the financial cost of the debt to replenish the resources of the Budgetary Income Stabilization Fund that have been disposed of from 2019 to 2022.
The decision was made with a closed vote of 27 votes in favor, from Morena and allies, and 26 against, from the National Action Party (PAN), the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and the Movement. Citizen.
According to the opinion of the initiative, sent by the Executive on September 8 as part of the 2023 economic package, the savings in the financial cost of the debt and the financial assets of the federal government may be transferred to the (FEIP).
However, the opposition expressed its reservations.
“This government has spent 85% of what was saved for 20 years” and was in the FEIP, accused PAN deputy Leticia Zepeda.
The PAN, in the voice of deputy Héctor Saúl Téllez, proposed also restoring resources taken from the Income Stabilization Fund of the Federal Entities (FEIEF), since “it has not received a single peso in 4 years.”
The proposal received the support of the opposition, but was not accepted by Morena or her allies.
“We are concerned about strengthening this fund, but how are we going to establish the operating rules for spending and transparency? These resources are not properly regulated and can once again be used discretionally, as is the case in the current administration”, claimed Mirza Flores Gómez when expressing her vote against the ruling.
The MC vice-coordinator recalled that the Ministry of Finance responded that “the destination of these resources did not have a specific purpose.”
“(So) we are not in a position to vote on this initiative without having established the rules to spend it, since it is the Chamber of Deputies that has the power to control and monitor spending,” he warned.
For his part, legislator Almílcar Sandoval defended the response of the Ministry of Finance, by not reporting the details of the destination of the expense.
“This fund has its rules. its ways of verifying the expense, it is not of free will. That could be the temptation of some other government,” he said.
“What happened? Well, a gigantic pandemic, that affected all the economies and also the instability of the war in Europe affected it,” he added.
Salomón Chertorivsky, from Movimiento Ciudadano, demanded transparency in the use of the FEIP.
“Of course we had difficult years, but we have 150 billion pesos that were taken out of the fund and are in the Treasury!” he pointed out.
The PRI deputy José Francisco Yunes affirmed that this government received the Fund with 300,000 million pesos and the following year it had already been left at 170 billion pesos.
“If the collection is 1 peso and we put 1.50 pesos, those 50 cents are charged to the budget revenue stabilization fund and that is what has meant that nearly 250,000 million pesos have been used in two years, which is what that should be in reserve for when the collection processes were under pressure, ”he explained.
Morenista Daniel Gutiérrez proposed studying the possibility of also strengthening the Federal Entities Income Stabilization Fund (FEIEF), but it did not prosper.