After 24 days of installing the second legislature, the Congress seems to be still sleepy, because the discussion of the projects is at half speed. This week the activity in commissions continues to be focused on political control, while the plenary sessions will debate various bills. Within this framework, the government’s health and pension reforms are still awaiting the second debate.
This situation is beginning to cause concern in the House of Nariño, because in the next few days it will bring another package of projects to Congress, running the risk that they will have difficulties for their processing, since by then the discussion will already be in the form of the reforms of health and pension, as well as the General Budget of the Nation for 2024.
So let’s see what the situation is in Congress regarding the Executive’s projects and what happens with those that were announced.
pension reform
It is up for second debate in the plenary session of the Senate after having been approved in the previous legislature by the Seventh Commission. However, the discussion takes at least two more weeks, because the paper has not been filed.
In this regard, the president of Colpensiones, Jaime Dussán, said in recent days that “we already had the opportunity to meet with the speakers and they asked Martha Peralta, the president of the Seventh Senate Commission, to give them one more week to prepare the text of the paper that will be delivered to the Senate of the Republic”.
Unlike the health reform, the pension does not generate so much rejection in the independent and opposition benches, which coincide in the pillar system. The biggest discussion is about the monthly minimum wage cap for people who contribute to go to Colpensiones, the public fund. The project establishes that it be up to three; however, the benches that are not part of the ruling party ask that it be up to two.
health reform
It is up for second debate in the plenary session of the Chamber, after being approved in the last legislature by the Seventh Commission.
The government initiative has had a presentation since the beginning of last June, when despite the fact that in plenary they had two weeks before the closing of the legislature for their vote, it was not done because only a significant number of impediments were resolved.
It is the reform that generates the most discussion among those that the Government has presented, due to the strong changes it makes to the system, such as the elimination of the EPS and the direct turn that it puts at the head of the Adres to pay hospitals and other IPS.
The project passed scraping in the first debate in the Seventh Chamber Commission, but the discussion in plenary could be at a different price, because the Government lost its majority.
The independent parties Conservative and the U reject the majority of this reform and, for obvious reasons, the opponents Cambio Radical and the Centro Democrático are against the text, in addition to presenting counter-reform proposals as statutory law.
While the liberals are divided against this project.
So, the outlook for the Government’s intention in the Senate plenary does not look rosy, where it is believed that if the proposal is approved it will undergo strong adjustments, as it could be that the EPS remain alive as they are today.
Labour reform
The project sank in the last legislature in the Seventh Commission of the Chamber because it was not processed due to the lack of consensus on the provisions it contemplates.
Most political forces consider it inconvenient because it does not deal with structural problems such as job creation and informality; while it revives benefits such as the night surcharge from 6 in the afternoon, as well as the triple surcharge on Sundays, which would cause costs to companies that would jeopardize job creation, as Banco de la República itself has warned. .
President Gustavo Petro announced since June that they will insist on the project because he believes that it does justice to workers, especially those who earn less.
Meanwhile, the minister of the branch, Gloria Inés Ramírez, indicated that they are making adjustments to the project, some that were not included in the first version. However, in recent days the official surprised by announcing that they postponed their filing for at least two more weeks.
Public services
Last June, President Gustavo Petro announced in front of hundreds of people in the Plaza de Bolívar that he would present a reform to the public services law, due to the high rates registered throughout the country, especially on the North coast.
“They will be the projects for the next semester with the reform of public services so that the axis of the public service is not the businessman who earns the ticket hand over fist, but rather the user,” said the president.
Little is known about what has happened to this project and when the Government will take it to Congress.
Based on what President Petro said, the bill will be filed this semester. For now, it has been known that technicians are working on the article that, as mentioned, seeks to ensure that rates, especially energy, do not hit users’ pockets so hard.
The Superintendent of Public Services, Dagoberto Quiroga, explained a few weeks ago about the reform of Public Services Law 142 that “what is good cannot be changed. We’ve talked about essential adjustments and updates. You have to submit it to dialogue.”
Education reform
The National Government announced that it will file this semester the reform of Law 30 on higher education, as well as the statutory bill that seeks to regulate the fundamental right.
The reform of Law 30 of 1992 is intended, according to the Ministry of Education, to strengthen access to higher education, the financing of state Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and educational welfare, among others, in order to guarantee this fundamental right.
On July 20, the Ministry presented the first versions of the two bills.
The draft of the project that regulates the fundamental right to education has 21 articles with four different chapters.
In the articles, the National Government proposes to create the twelfth grade in secondary education.
While the draft of the project that seeks to reform Law 30 of 1992 is based on seven main ideas, the first is to understand higher education as a fundamental right and common good.
It also proposes the expansion of access to higher education with criteria of socioeconomic vulnerability, territorial and population equity.
It was learned that the Ministry is working on the articles of the two projects, but there is no set date to take them to Congress.
Mining Code
President Petro also announced that the reform of the 2001 Mining Code will be filed in the second half of this year, an initiative that has been presented to Congress on several occasions, without success.
Even in the first government of Juan Manuel Santos, the Congress of the Republic approved this reform, but it fell through in the review of the Constitutional Court because prior consultation was ignored.
Agrarian reform
The Government finally determined that this reform will not be carried out through a law, but will be from an administrative point of view, based on the development of what is foreseen in the matter in the National Development Plan 2022-2026 and the Peace Agreement.