Bonilla asked to leave at a crucial juncture

COLOMBIA - In Brief 04 Dec 2024 by Andrés Escobar Arango

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In light of the accusations regarding Finance Minister Bonilla’s involvement in mishandling public funds to obtain favors from Congress, President Petro asked for his resignation. In the afternoon hours of December 4th, Mr. Bonilla has agreed to do so. The timing could not be worse. The Financing Law discussions are at a crucial point. The spending cuts required to comply with the Fiscal Rule in 2024 depend on decisions and restrictions the Finance Ministry will have to impose and enforce every day until December 31st. The minimum wage negotiations have just started. But more than that, Mr. Bonilla, just like Ocampo before him, acted like the “adult in the room” against the ever-mounting spending pressures generated by everyone else in the administration. In probably the longest (and weirdest) post on X since reaching the presidency, Petro said the accusations against Bonilla are unfair, not necessarily because he did not do what he is accused of, but rather because he just did what every single Finance Minister did before him. The difference that makes his ousting unfair according to Petro, and Bonilla a victim of entrapment by the “financial extreme right, its politicians, and big mafia”, is that this time the media decided to expose the case. Petro said he is reluctantly willing to let Bonilla go rather than let this naïve and good-natured economist be dragged through the mud. He’s letting him go because he paid, against Petro’s best advice and warnings, too much attention to the “Uribista” public servants working at the Finance Ministry. He’s letting him go because he sees in him another Yannis Varoufakis. We told you the post on X is pretty weird. In his letter of...