During the first reading, legislators approved a bill that allows the government to recover funds that institutions haven’t spent in two years.
If the bill is enacted today, the government could handle 750,000 million colones that public and private institutions kept deposited in the state’s bank account (known as Caja Única del Estado). This amount is more than what the government expects to collect by creating new taxes.
Nevertheless, after the law comes into effect the entities will have two more years to decide how to use these funds.
Currently, once budgets for investments are allocated, these funds can’t be used for other purposes, even if institutions don’t spend it on time.
According to the Finance Ministry, the unused budgets balance has been growing 6 per cent every year.
In 2015, the institution with the highest amount of unused budgets was the social security system (CCSS), with 427,000 million colones.
Source: La Nación.