A significant cut in the budget allocated for sport in Colombia for 2025 was confirmed by the Ministry of Sports this Tuesday, August 6.
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Last week it was announced that the budget for Colombian athletes would be reduced next year by some 848 billion pesos, going from $1.312 billion in 2024 to 464 billion pesos.
The congressman Mauricio Parodi had raised the alarm and stated that the reduction will be even slightly higher, 900 billion pesos for a reduction of 66%.
Pan American Skating Championship.
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“By 2025, it has been announced that the budget for athletes will be reduced by 900 billion pesos, a decrease of 66%, from 1.36 trillion to 464 billion pesos, despite the fact that the nation’s general budget will increase by 4%, from 502 trillion in 2024 to 523 trillion in 2025,” he said.
Parodi noted that “while operating expenses and bureaucracy have grown by more than 50% in the last two years, totaling more than 100 billion pesos, the government plans a new tax reform to collect an additional 12 billion, further affecting Colombians.”
Minister confirms reduction
In a day full of emotions, the best sprinters in the world opened the curtain of the U-20 World Athletics Championship, which is taking place at the Pascual Guerrero stadium. The official opening ceremony was also held.
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The impact on the sports budget was confirmed by the Ministry of Sport.
“We have been in working meetings with the Ministry of Finance and the DNP (National Planning Department) for over a month; it is known that there is a crisis and that it affects not only the sports portfolio but all of them, which see their budget ceilings and their quotas for 2025 affected. Today, what we have from the National Government is a quota of 460 billion pesos, 400 thousand are investment, it is the third part that we have had in 2024. We make working tables and we hope to do a good job with Congress to give sustainability to 2025 with the same resources of 2024,” said the Minister of Sports, Light Cristina Lopez.
Lack of execution?
A technical source from the DNP consulted by EL TIEMPO said: “The available spending ceilings were reviewed and to the extent that the sector has no inflexibilities, and due to the narrow fiscal space left to us by the payment of debt service, we had to reduce the sector’s spending.”
Another source, unofficially, told this newspaper: “These cuts are also made because there is a lack of execution.” “Sometimes it is because they do not know how to execute or they are afraid to do so and they fall behind,” he said.
The execution of the 2024 budget of 1.3 was at 10% on Tuesday, according to the DNP.
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