Costa Rica News – I sometimes wonder what is going through the mind of government officials when they decide to make budget cuts. Do they give any thought to it at all? Was there truly no money to help a program that gives children a fighting chance as well as gives back to the communities they are in?
The initial news of health officials possibly cutting the Cen-CINAI budget was shocking because this affects the program that feeds and cares for kids ages six months to seven years old.
I was able to spend time with these kids and their mentors during a beach clean up in Jaco and saw how much joy this program brought into their lives. Perhaps if we had these government officials have to tell these kids in person that they were cutting their funding then they might have chosen somewhere else to cut the budget.
You actions make me sick!!!!!!
The reduction of 35% of their anticipated budget for next year is part of the ¢8.000 million that the government intends to reduce from the country’s overall health portfolio. Other programs facing reductions are the control of tobacco and actions against dengue and Chikungunya.
A lawmaker explained, however, that the health budget is actually going to be larger than it was this year, despite the cuts, which are coming from projected numbers. It is not a decrease from the 2014 budget. Considering the hard numbers and the inflation, the budget will actually increase by 2.5% in real terms.
The health portfolio will have ¢262,000 million. The Ministry of Health only takes 2% of the budget to operate and the rest is divided out among various institutions like CCSS, Icoder and IAFA and used to pay salaries (26%).
We can only hope that the Cen-Cinai program can receive private funding to continue doing the excellent work they do.
