The official said that the Superintendency of Tax Administration (SAT) delivered to the MEM the report that must be issued as part of the mechanism to proceed. to the payment of the subsidy to diesel and gasoline importing companies.
He added that a meeting of the budget programming and execution committee was held on Thursday and that this Friday the Ministry of Finance would assign them the respective budget quota to make the payment between that same Friday and Monday, for Q175.5 million.
“They are going to enable us with financial resources because we already have them,” so that the MEM, after making the corresponding validations of form and substance, can make the corresponding payment, he added.
The subsidy came into effect on April 28, consisting of Q8 per gallon of diesel and Q5 per gallon of gasoline, for a period of three months, for which the amount of Q2 billion was approved.
Payment will be made to the importers of these fuels. In addition, the MEM issues reference prices based on international prices, import and port costs, freight and margins.
The second list of reference prices, in effect from May 5 to 11, registered an increase of Q2.60 per gallon of gasoline and Q1.60 for diesel, which, according to Barrios, is derived from the increase in international prices.
Budget reduction to ministries
To finance the subsidy, Decree 11-2026 establishes the decrease in the budget of some ministries by Q808 million: National Defense, by Q200 million; Agriculture, for Q58 million; and Communications, Infrastructure and Housing, for Q550 million (Q350 million from the State Building Construction Unit and Q200 million from the General Directorate of Roads).
In this regard, on Friday, May 8, Government Agreement 66-2026, issued by the Minfin, was published in the Diario de Centro América, in which the analytical distribution of the decrease in the State budget is approved. The cut was made in the area of physical investment to the three ministries for the total amount mentioned.
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On April 30, agreement 65-2026 had already been issued to provide that budget to the MEM.
Furthermore, the decree establishes that for the remaining Q1,192 million, the Minfin must carry out the necessary budgetary rearrangements, but they have not yet been disclosed.
They expose doubts
The Vos bench questioned officials of the MEM, the SAT and the Directorate of Consumer Care and Assistance (Diaco) regarding the implementation of the subsidy and the procedure established in the regulations issued for this purpose.
Parliamentarian Orlando Blanco presented the conclusions of said meeting, indicating that the reference price for the application of the subsidy is the international price of fuel, but they consider that it should be that of the import invoice.
Another question mentioned by the deputy states that the SAT only calculates the subsidy with the income tax, but without verifying that the fuel is being consumed. Blanco’s criticism focuses on the fact that with this mechanism you pay in advance, because there is no crossover with the electronic invoice that service stations issue to the consumer.
Furthermore, Blanco denounced at the meeting that there is fuel traffic from Guatemala to Honduras and, by not making the crossing with the consumption data, the country is subsidizing part of the fuel consumed in the neighboring country, and they believe that with this they can fictitiously increase the volumes of imports.
The deputies asked for more controls and verifications, since they pointed out that fuel prices in the departments show a behavior that they consider abnormal in relation to the period before the crisis, which could cause consumers to pay more for gasoline.
They also requested more actions from the Diaco and the Comptroller General of Accounts, since, As explained in the meeting, no more complaints have been generated to the MP since last March 18.
Meanwhile, Herbert Ordóñez, head of the Verification and Surveillance Department of the Diaco, reported that they have carried out 610 verifications at service stations since April 28, and around 80 gas stations were identified that did not immediately comply with the application of the subsidy, derived from what is established in article 8 of the regulation, which refers to exhausting the existence of inventories first.
They were given a period of 10 days to respond in this regard, and those who do not respond to the request could be subject to a sanction, since Decree 11-2026 establishes sanctions of 30 minimum wages, he added.
Ordóñez said that he received around 300 complaints through the alert button on the Diaco website.