Marino Ginebra, president of the National Business Council (Conep) warns the government not to convert funds allotted to capital investments in the National Budget to current spending after it issues the sovereign bonds. He said the passing of the bonds needs to be accompanied by budget reform to ensure that this does not happen. Several public works that are funded in the National Budget are now programmed to be built with the bond funds instead. Ginebra recommends the government set the capital investments part of the budget at 35-40% and reduce current spending from 70% to 60% for payroll and other expenses. “We are concerned about the application of the bonds and the speed with which the government wants to use these funds to give a shock treatment to the economy, increase money in circulation and put people back into an investing mood, but one has to see the speed at which this is all going because having too much money at one time is bad,” he said. Ginebra favors reducing the ITBIS tax to 6% and applying it to all products, except farm produce.
