Will Abelardo Reduce the State? Savings, Bureaucracy and Presidential Power

What Does Abelardo Really Want to Change? The Business-President's Vision

Will Abelardo dismantle the State? That is the question the opposition is asking. The debate looks administrative, but it is profoundly political. And before answering it, we have to understand what the president is actually seeing.

Imagine you arrive to run a company and discover it has duplicated departments, two offices doing essentially the same thing, positions that nobody can explain, unnecessary processes, and a structure that costs more than it should. What would you do? You would reorganize the company.

That is precisely what President Abelardo de la Espriella appears to be attempting with Colombia. He is a businessman — he built a business from scratch — and in his mind he is coming to run Colombia like a large company that has to produce results, that has revenues and that has responsibilities and accountability to the Colombian people.

His government already announced a sweeping review of entities, contracting, and administrative structures. In just 60 days in office, we have seen the speed of the changes and the seriousness of the analysis of the country's financial condition.

And there is the central tension of this episode. The president's business vision is legitimate and necessary. Colombia has real duplications, unnecessary contracts, and structures that cost more than they produce. But applying corporate reorganization logic to a State with rights, controls, and separation of powers is a task that requires more than speed. It requires precision.

The Constitutional Maze: What the President Can and Cannot Do Alone

One thing is for the president to say "I want to reduce the State." Something very different is being able to do it alone. The Constitution gives Congress the authority to determine the structure of the national administration and to create, suppress, or merge ministries and other national-level entities.

That is why Bill 249 of 2026 appeared:

Translated into plain language: Congress could tell President Abelardo, "for a limited period, you may reorganize much of the State without having to pass a separate law for every change." That can accelerate reforms the country urgently needs.

But here a crucial distinction appears — one that is frequently lost in the public debate: eliminating an entity does not automatically eliminate its functions.

It may be another ministry, an agency, an administrative department, or perhaps some functions truly can be eliminated. But the right question is not how many ministries we are going to close. The right question is: what functions does the Colombian State actually need?

How Much Do You Really Save? The Math of Adjustment

Here comes the promise that is most seductive: we are going to cut the State. It sounds good — more efficiency, less bureaucracy, less spending. But now comes an important question: how much do you actually save?

Those are large numbers. But they are not exactly the same thing, and so we must avoid a trap. Not every spending cut comes from closing ministries, and not every ministry that disappears necessarily produces savings equivalent to its full budget.

Imagine two entities. One has 500 employees, the other has 300. We merge them. Do we immediately save the cost of 300 people? Not necessarily. A large portion of those functions may still be needed. What typically gets saved is duplications: directorates, offices, contracts, advisory positions, and administration. But the core function remains.

Castro sets a concrete condition for the government: if tomorrow it says "we are eliminating five entities," he wants to see five sets of figures. What does each one cost? What does closing it save? What does liquidating it cost? Who absorbs its functions? And what will those functions cost afterward? Entity by entity, contract by contract, function by function. That is how we will know whether this is a structural reform or a politically attractive number.

Smaller State ≠ Better State: The Org-Chart Trap

A smaller state is not automatically a better state. Nor is a larger state automatically better. Size alone does not answer the question. What matters is: does it work?

The debate should not only be about how many entities we have, but what results they produce. Castro identifies two symmetrical traps in this discussion:

The blind-cut trap: Reducing for the sake of reducing can be costly. If we end up with fewer entities but slower processes, worse-served citizens, less technical capacity, and disorganized functions, we will have trimmed the org chart — not necessarily improved the State.

The necessary-function trap: Using the words "necessary function" to justify absolutely everything. Every entity can explain why it exists. Every official can explain why their position is indispensable. And if we accept all those arguments, the State never changes.

President Abelardo himself, even before taking office, said he did not want to decide which entities to eliminate without first reviewing their economic and functional reality. "Measure first, then cut." That is a businessman's philosophy, and Castro considers it sensible.

That is why he proposes measuring the reform not by how many ministries disappear, but by three concrete questions:

If the reform achieves all three, Colombia will have gained. If it only renames agencies and moves officials from one office to another, it will have produced a visual reform, not a structural one.

Extraordinary Powers: Speed with Limits

We arrive at the most delicate point. Up to now we have discussed something many people probably agree on: reducing duplications, eliminating bureaucracy, making the State more efficient. But now another question appears: how much power are we willing to give the president to do it?

Normally Congress makes the laws and the president executes them. But the Constitution permits something exceptional: Congress can temporarily transfer to the president certain precise legislative powers. That can accelerate reforms and prevent every change from requiring a separate legislative process.

Imagine that a board of directors tells a company's CEO: "For 6 months you can reorganize the entire company." That can be useful. But the board would have to define what he can touch, what he cannot touch, what reports he must submit, and which decisions still require authorization. Otherwise we are no longer talking only about management — we are talking about the concentration of power.

That changes the conversation entirely, because we are no longer choosing between reform and control. We can have both. Colombia needs speed to carry out these reforms, but also limits, decision-making capacity but also political control, autonomy but also accountability.

The final question of this episode is not whether President Abelardo wants to reduce the State. Castro says it clearly: he does not think that is the problem. The question is under what rules he will be able to do it. And the answer to that question will reveal whether what is underway is a structural reform or something that simply shrinks the State without modernizing it.