ECUADOR

On May 13, the National Assembly began work on the urgent Humanitarian Aid Bill, including reading the report drawn up for the second debate. The Assembly also began work on the Public Finance Regulation bill. The ruling party is keen to have both regulations passed this week as a matter of urgency. If the Legislative Branch does not issue any opinion on the initiatives (either approving or rejecting them) before May 16, the Executive will be empowered to enact both measures forthwith.  

The session began in the morning with a presentation by the president of the Economic Regime Committee, Daniel Mendoza, on the report drawn up by the Bureau concerning the Public Finance Regulation bill. Mendoza pointed out that the idea is to protect the administrative and financial independence of the Decentralized Autonomous Governments and Social Security entities. He explained that the articles of the original text, which are about the way the public sector is classified, had been restructured to keep them “in line” with the Constitution. 

The assembly members expressed their support for the new standard which implements a range of fiscal rules aimed at ensuring the “responsible, sustainable and efficient” management of public resources. The new measure also determines the allocation of resources for contingencies arising from the materialization of fiscal risks no higher than 3% of the total amount of expenditure included in the General State Budget.