By Alhelí González Cáceres *
In the article “Food Crisis, Fighting Hunger in the Bañados and the Scarce Governmental Support,” I contextualized the food crisis affecting a large part of the Paraguayan population. The focus was on the “Pykuí” Community Pot Coordination that emerged in Bañado Sur, as it was the organization that led the design of Law No. 6.945/2022, which created the “Support Program for Dining Halls and Community Centers” (hereafter PACC).
As pointed out in the aforementioned article, the food crisis is a problem that has been escalating since at least 2018, although it deepened and became more visible in the context of the pandemic. Table 1 shows the increase in the number of people attending community dining halls under the Support Program for Community Organization Dining Halls (PACOC), a program of the Ministry of Social Development (MDS) for managing food assistance before the pandemic. While the data are alarming, they do not fully reflect the magnitude of the problem, as not all economically vulnerable populations are assisted by the community dining halls deployed throughout the country.
As can be seen, between 2018 and 2021 alone, the number of people benefiting from community dining halls increased 24-fold, reaching 210,706 people served during the pandemic. By September 2022, the figure dropped to 90,814 people assisted.
Figure 1. Beneficiaries of the Support Program for Community Organization Dining Halls between 2018-2022
Source: Own elaboration based on data provided by PACOC of MDS through a request via the public access to the information portal, with Identification No. 62349, made in November 2022. The 2022 data are only up to September of that year.
The previous graph shows the deepening of the food crisis in the country, data that were also presented in the report by INE (2022), which includes findings from the Application of the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) in Paraguay to illustrate the complexity of the food crisis.
Now let’s delve into the budget management of the MDS. The Budgetary Classifier of Income, Expenses, and Financing for Fiscal Year 2023 establishes that expenses are classified according to their purpose, based on the object or nature of the goods and services that the Government acquires to develop its activities. Therefore, the classification of expenditure accounts for the destination of the resources available to institutions, whether they refer to consumption, transfers, or investment.
Table 1 presents two groups of expenses, the first related to object 300 Goods for Consumption and Inputs, and the second, object 800 Transfers, which includes resources for the payment of Subsidies and Social Assistance to People and Families in the private sector. These two groups are directly related to the mission of the MDS.
The purpose is to compare the budget execution of groups 300 and 800, with the expenditure of group 100 related to Personal Services, from which subgroup 110 Basic Remunerations is taken. This comparison allows us to evaluate the execution of an expense where there is political will to execute (110 remunerations), with others (from groups 300 and 800) that require, in addition to will, capacity, sensitivity, management of intra- and inter-institutional articulations, among others. Needless to say, as citizens, we would expect the execution levels to be, at least, similar.
In a country historically characterized by institutional weakness, corruption, limited public resources, and immense social needs to guarantee, all possible citizen control should be focused on stopping and reducing the possibilities of mismanagement of public funds.
However, the results of the comparison paint a different picture. Those expenses corresponding to remunerations have been the most executed, by far. Meanwhile, those resources destined for the mission activities of the MDS, such as the acquisition of food inputs and subsidies to vulnerable groups, are the least executed.
Table 1. Budget Execution by Expense Object for the years 2019 to October 2022 corresponding to the Social Management Program
Source: Own elaboration based on information sent by the MDS, according to request No. 62.353
That the execution of the budget related to remunerations is high is not new. The fulfillment of salary payments occurs because there is pressure from the staff to be paid on time and properly, as it should be. Also, the executive levels and the highest institutional authorities have aligned incentives for this to happen. If there are problems with salary payments, it affects the institution and could even lead to instability in the positions of the executives.
Now, what happens when it’s not about salaries? The execution is much lower, as shown by items 300 and 800 in Table 1.
Let’s move on to a second point of interest, the Support Program for Dining Halls and Community Centers (PACC), created in 2022 to alleviate the food crisis in the country. It has one of the lowest executions of all programs managed by the MDS. Table 2 shows the budget execution by expense object. As can be seen, the execution of the resources allocated for the acquisition of food inputs contemplated in objects 300 and 310 was 5%, with the total budget execution of the program being just 14% by December 2022. Despite continuous complaints from community pots and other community articulations benefited from the program.
Table 3. Budget Execution by Expense Object of the Support Program for Dining Halls and Community Centers as of December 2022
Source: Information provided by the MDS in response to the request made through the public access to information portal ID 62.349.
The data collected and presented in the preceding table suggest inefficiency regarding the realization of public purchases of food inputs, investment in infrastructure for temporary dining halls, and even in inter-institutional articulation to acquire food inputs from family agriculture as established by law. This is reinforced by the fact that, after the promulgation of the PACC law, between June and December 2022, there were only two calls for the acquisition of milk and groceries for dining halls assisted by the MDS, and in neither of them were the total financial transfers made, despite the growing need for inputs affecting the community pot coordination.
In this regard, it should be noted that the first call, with identification number ID 412613, dated June 21, 2022, was for a total awarded amount of Gs. 5,499,990,800, as detailed in Tender 412613 on the portal of the National Directorate of Public Procurement (DNCP). The second, carried out in November 2022 ID 419041, for the acquisition of groceries for dining halls and community centers, was for an amount of Gs. 5,480,852,000, as seen in Tender 419041.
In the 419041 call, Grupo Belmac S.A. was awarded Gs. 4,612,300,000, followed by Consorcio Central, with an amount of Gs. 406,640,000, to supply food products. Grupo Belmac S.A. has already received disbursements of Gs. 1,539,734,701. Meanwhile, the other suppliers awarded in the call have not yet received any transfers from the MDS, which can be verified on the DNCP portal, in the link corresponding to the MDS Tenders as of December 2022. Additionally, in the months of 2023, the MDS has not made any calls to acquire food products, despite the ongoing complaints from the community pots.
It is important to note that, in the request made to the Ministry of Finance (MH) via the public access to information portal with ID 72.625 about the details of the financial transfers made to the MDS, the MH stated through Memorandum DGTP No. 241/2023 and Note N.D.O. No. 185/2023, that it had transferred the total budgeted resources to the PACC for 2022 and, as of the date of the request, had transferred 950,988,000 Guarani of the budgeted for 2023.
In summary, in 2022, the MH transferred the total budgeted resources so that the MDS could provide the dining halls and community centers with the food inputs established by law. However, the MDS did not execute a significant portion of the funds. The result is that the pots remain empty. Why?
In conclusion, as of the date of this article’s presentation, the MDS has not made transfers corresponding to the payment of the only two tenders carried out to acquire food inputs in 2022. It remains to explore the cause of this, whether it is due to inefficiency in management, insufficient institutional will, or problems of another nature regarding the care of public funds. Ultimately, in a country historically characterized by institutional weakness, corruption, limited public resources, and immense social needs to guarantee, all possible citizen control should be focused on stopping and reducing the possibilities of mismanagement of public funds.
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*Ph.D. (candidate) in Economics, at the Institute of Industry, UNGS, Argentina. She holds a Master’s Degree in Social Sciences with a Mention in Research and Social Development from FLACSO Paraguay. Economist, FCE – UPR, Cuba.
This study was conducted as part of the initiative “Youth Control for Better Public Management,” promoted by the Interdisciplinary Center for Social Research (CIIS) with the support of CIRD, within the framework of the More Citizenship, Less Corruption project.
Cover Image: Roberto Goiriz