The government of Carlos Alvarado denied that it has “yielded” before the public universities after the agreement they reached on the investment of the Special Fund for Higher Education (FEES). It also denies that this agreement affects the compliance with the fiscal rule in the Regular Budget of the Republic in 2020.
The fiscal rule, contained in the Plan to Strengthen Public Finance, is a measure that limits the growth of public spending on salaries, payment of services and transfers.
The position of the Executive differs from that of the opposition, who say that the agreement reached by the government and universities clearly disallowed a measure adopted by the Ministry of Finance and endorsed by the legislators.
The agreement between the government and the presidents of the universities was reached on Tuesday, at a meeting where the main absent was former Minister Rocío Aguilar.
The presidents demanded that the approval of the 2020 Regular Budget contained more than 500 billion colones to the FEES, ¢35 billion will be used only for infrastructure. This provision, which left the Treasury after an agreement signed in July with these same presidents, did not fall well in the universities that rose in protest for several days.