President Gustavo Petro is struggling to find the money that is needed to prevent that millions of Colombia’s poorest families will be left without relief next month.
According to Petro, the government doesn’t have the money to continue the so-called “Solidarity Income” program, which allowed some 4 million families to receive a $40 monthly stipend since 2020.
Former President Ivan Duque created this program to mitigate the devastating effects of the coronavirus pandemic on the approximately 20 million people who somehow survived with less than $74 a month last year.
But according to Petro, Duque failed to allocate funds that would allow the program to continue after the end of this month, however.
Congress approved the new government’s budget for 2023 in October, but has yet to approve a tax reform that would boost tax revenue with $5.5 billion in 2023 and allow increased spending on poverty reduction.
In the meantime, nobody appears to have a clue what to do about the impending crisis for the millions of people that relied on the Solidary Income program to buy food.
According to Social Prosperity Department (DPS) director Cielo Rusinque, her department received a provisional budget of $83 million (COP400 billion) to finance its “shock plan against hunger” in December.
The emergency budget would allow the social security agency to transfer a $104 (COP500K) stipend to some 2 million poor families next month.
What will happen to the 2 million families that were apparently left out of the “shock plan” is a mystery.
Whether the government will have money to prevent a major surge in extreme poverty in January is also unclear.
The government “is making a huge effort to secure the income for the poorest households,” said Rusinque.
Neither the DPS chief nor the president have given any details about this alleged effort to secure life-saving aid for the impending hunger crisis.
According to national statistics agency DANE, more than 20 million Colombians survived with less than $74 a month in 2021.