“Terrible” and “irresponsible” were the words used by legislator and founder of the Citizen Action Party (PAC), Ottón Solís, to describe the National Children’s Trust’s (PANI) decision to open 845 new job vacancies.
Solís said that the institution needs to strengthen the care of children and adolescents, but the number of recruitments would increase bureaucracy at a time when the Legislature is studying legal reforms to limit additional incentives to wage in the public sector.
I think a serious mistake from the government to have sent that budget (…) What I would expect is that the government forbids PANI from continuing with this, call that lady to accounts (Ana Teresa León, Executive president of the institution),”
said the legislator.
He acknowledged that PANI might does need to spend the requested budget for more shelters, but insisted that 845 new employees are not necessary.
The government included in the draft for the 2017 national budget ¢ 47 billion that the members of the Committee on Financial Affairs were going to give to the ministries of Public Security and Justice and the Judiciary.
In justifying this volume of resources, the president of PANI, Ana Teresa León said she needed to hire 845 new employees to implement new programs.
Frente Amplio, a sector of the bench of CAP, and some minority legislators believe that the elimination of additional resources to PANI care programs puts children and adolescents at risk.
Representatives of the parties National Liberation (PLN), Social Christian Unity (PUSC) and Libertarian Movement contend that the ¢ 47,000 additional billion defended by PANI re not justified.
The arguments to support this thesis are summarized as follows:
The funds received by PANI will be kept for next year’s national budget, as well as the annual adjustment for inflation of 3%.
Technically it is not a budget cut. It is a redistribution of the surplus of resources that the Executive Branch seeks to inject to the institution.
845 new positions only raise the bureaucracy and public spending that is financed by taxes paid by all taxpayers.
PANI did not submit plans to justify this number of employees.
If the institution were to take more money, it could request extraordinary resources to Congress next year.
The institution has shown no capacity to execute the budgets.
Is it true that the reallocation of funds places PANI in a serious situation?
It’s not true. It’s pure cheap politicking. You see that they have never been in institutions and have never had to execute a budget. It’s not that bad. We have said that if they need an extraordinary budget, we’ll approve it immediately,”
replied PLN’s chief of staff, Maureen Clarke.
For Rosibel Ramos, legislator from PUSC, the 845 new positions are not justified
in any way considering that 175 are for managers and executive president (…) The institution would grow twice.”
Otto Guevara, from the Libertarian Movement, said that it is not true that a technical closure of PANI will happen and that no program of the institution will disappear.
On the other hand, Franklin Corella, deputy leader of PAC, and Edgardo Araya, head of Frente Amplio, defend that more resources must be granted to PANI.
This allows the opportunity to open regional offices throughout the country and that means staff and budget,”
said Corella.
However, he acknowledged that the ability to execute resources is the major challenge for the institution.