In his first statements to the media as appointed Finance Minister, Ricardo Bonilla showed how little popularity matters to him: this Thursday he told CARACOL RADIO that the price of gasoline must continue to rise until it reaches its real cost, of about 15,000 or 16,000 pesos. , when today it is worth around 11,000.
This announcement, which shows continuity in economic and energy policy, also reflects a central feature of whoever has the State's finances in his hands: he is faithful to President Gustavo Petro, who has defended the need to dismantle fossil fuel subsidies.
Bonilla (Bogotá, 73 years old) is an academic.
An economist graduated from the Jorge Tadeo Lozano University, with a postgraduate degree in industrial economics from the University of Rennes 1, in France, he spent 30 years in academia, as a full-time professor at the National University and member of the Development Research Center (CID ) from that university.
That life in the classrooms and investigations ended apparently abruptly, when in 2011 the current president Gustavo Petro was elected Mayor of Bogotá.
Bonilla, along with his partner in the National Jorge Iván González, today director of National Planning for Petro, were the two brains of the economic program of the Petro campaign.
Unlike his colleague, Bonilla accepted a district cabinet appointment as finance secretary.
Petro, who did not have administrative but legislative experience, then bet on left-wing academics to make up a good part of his team.
Bonilla, of the Keynesian line in economics and representative of a moderate left, was one of those who remained in his position the longest and was closest to the person who now appoints him as minister.
That closeness turned into an almost unconditional loyalty.
He has not only been part of the program committees of Petro's campaigns for the presidency in 2018 and 2022, a usual function for an academic close to a politician, but he has even assumed more administrative or electoral functions.
For example, he led the support of the Petro sector for Clara López's continuation candidacy to replace the current president in the Bogotá Mayor's Office in 2015, or he managed the list of the Petro movement, Human Colombia, for the Bogotá council in the elections. 2019 venues.
Beyond this political accompaniment, fidelity was noted in difficult situations.
In the most notorious decisions of his as mayor, Petro decided to reduce the value of the ticket for the city's public transportation system, especially during off-peak hours.
The difficulty was that this decision led to the District receiving fewer resources, and the decree that defined the rate reduction did not have prior studies.
The mayor's decision was clear, but so was the legal risk.
For this reason, the manager of the company in charge of mass transportation Transmilenio, the transportation expert and Petro's adviser on the matter, Fernando Rey, preferred to resign rather than sign the decision.
Bonilla, as Secretary of the Treasury, remained firm and endorsed the document.
For this reason, the District Comptroller's Office opened an investigation against Petro, Bonilla and other officials, alleging that they had caused a patrimonial detriment, or a loss of public resources, for about 100,000 million pesos, about 33 million dollars.
For that amount, the Comptroller's Office froze his bank accounts in 2014 and sanctioned him in 2016 with fines that totaled 217,000 million at that time and the prohibition to exercise public functions until 2026. Those decisions were later annulled by the courts, but they show the level of loyalty that the new minister has with the president.
That relationship, which is far from the one that existed between José Antonio Ocampo and Petro, who had even been on opposite sides in the presidential elections.
While Ocampo was critical of decisions close to the president's heart, such as the almost immediate energy transition announced by the Minister of Mines Irene Vélez or the high cost of the health reform that Petro presented to Congress, Bonilla has shown commitment to the vision and Petro's aspirations for more than a decade.
That is why the former Minister of Finance and columnist for EL PAÍS Juan Carlos Echeverry defines the new Minister of Finance as a "faithful" person.
But Echeverry himself clarifies that he is a serious, solid economist.
“He is low profile, but I see him well.
He was solid in the mayoralty ”acknowledges who, as a presidential candidate in 2022, was in the right-wing coalition, in the antipodes of Petro.
In a similar line, the director of the prestigious think tank, Luis Fernando Mejía, says that the appointment is positive, although Bonilla still has to clear up questions.
“He has experience in public finance, as Bogotá's Secretary of Finance and was the expected candidate to succeed Ocampo.
The surprising thing was the moment, that is why the messages that he has been giving since his appointment are key, about the importance of compliance with the fiscal rule, the independence of the Bank of the Republic and, in general, the continuity of economic policy ”, told this newspaper.
Bonilla's recognition among his colleagues, and in front of political leaders who are not from the left, became clear when the Government of Juan Manuel Santos, headed by the conservative minister Mauricio Cárdenas, formed a commission of experts in February 2015 to give him the recommendations that would be the basis of a tax reform.
Among the nine chosen was Bonilla, who was especially in charge of ideas to improve local taxes such as property taxes and industry and commerce.
An eminently technical matter that shows the solvency of the new minister.
"Our country continues to need oil and coal exports, they are future sales that already exist," said the incoming minister on Wednesday, maintaining Ocampo's line.
He also maintained the idea of graduality when explaining that the income from the extractive economy should be changed for one that comes from the industry, but clarifying that "it is a process that takes 15 to 20 years."
And, above all, he promised to respect the fiscal rule, the rule that determines the ceiling of the deficit that the State must have each year, and which serves not only to reassure the markets but especially to balance the entire economy.
As Secretary of the Treasury, Bonilla did it: Petro left the mayor's office with a deficit of 0.3% of the capital's GDP when the ceiling was 1.4%, and with debts of 14.68% of the District's income,
small compared to the maximum of 80%.
The Comptroller's Office found that Bogotá's fiscal performance was better than that of any departmental capital and was in the “outstanding” category.
A qualification that the country yearns for in the midst of the current economic difficulties.
Subscribe here
to the EL PAÍS newsletter on Colombia and receive all the latest information on the country.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
Keep reading
I'm already a subscriber