The crisis over errors in the processing of Colombia’s 2027 budget brought further consequences for the government of Abelardo de la Espriella on Friday. One person resigned, and five other officials on the Finance Ministry’s legislative relations team left the agency after the executive branch was forced to issue the budget by decree because of failures in the congressional approval process.
The departures came a day after Rodrigo Lara’s removal as interior minister, also amid the political tensions triggered by the episode. The case has raised questions about coordination between the government and the legislature, as well as the accountability of those involved in reviewing the versions approved by the Senate and the House of Representatives. The controversy also left out budget amendments agreed upon during the second debate.
More ‘victims’ of the error in Colombia’s 2027 budget process
The Finance Ministry’s legislative liaison team, headed by Minister Miguel Gomez, was dismantled after all six of its members left. According to information that emerged Friday, one member submitted a resignation, while the service contracts of the other five were terminated.
The team’s responsibilities included supporting congressional discussions of the government’s economic initiatives and facilitating coordination between the ministry and lawmakers. Its departure comes at a time of heightened pressure on the Finance Ministry, after inconsistencies in the budget process prevented the bill from being validly approved through the ordinary legislative procedure.
Although responsibility for the error has not been definitively established, the episode has placed the conduct of officials involved in the process and the verification mechanisms used during the votes under scrutiny. The controversy has also raised questions about the executive branch’s ability to coordinate its initiatives with both chambers of Congress.
The problem arose during the approval of next year’s budget, which totals 634.9 trillion pesos (about US$201 billion). The Senate and the House of Representatives approved different versions of Article 65 of the bill, but the discrepancy was not corrected through the reconciliation procedure required when the two chambers pass different texts.
The difference stemmed from a proposal that had been withdrawn during debate in the Senate but was ultimately included in the version approved by the House. Amid time pressure to complete the vote before the legal deadline expired, the discrepancy went undetected and was not resolved in time.
Because the legislative process was not properly completed, the government determined that it had to issue the budget by decree. The decision established the amount of funding available for next year but excluded amendments introduced during the second debate, including a three-trillion-peso reallocation for the health sector.
The outcome turned a procedural error into a political and administrative crisis, with consequences both for the officials responsible for supporting the process and for relations between the executive branch and Congress.
El presidente @ABDELAESPRIELLA expidió el Decreto 1599 de 2026, mediante el cual se adopta el Presupuesto de la Verdad para 2027, por $634,9 billones, con las modificaciones aprobadas en primer debate.
https://t.co/FiT4H5tvrf https://t.co/m4WULdJSJs
— MinHacienda (@MinHacienda) October 23, 2026
A mechanism used only twice before
Issuing the budget by decree marks the third time Colombia has resorted to this mechanism since the 1991 Constitution was adopted. The two previous instances occurred during deliberations over the 1992 and 2025 budgets.
The first case occurred amid the institutional transition following the adoption of the new Constitution, as the country adapted its procedures to the newly established rules. The second took place under President Gustavo Petro, after the 2025 budget bill failed to advance in Congress and the legal deadlines for its approval expired.
The 2027 case has one significant difference: this time, both chambers debated and voted on the bill but failed to properly complete the procedure for reconciling their versions. The failure made issuing the budget by decree the solution to prevent the country from being left without an established budget for next year.
As the government seeks to understand what went wrong throughout the process, President De la Espriella has already exacted a toll from those directly affected by the fiasco surrounding the congressional processing of one of the year’s most important pieces of legislation.