Political Constitution of Colombia (1991)

Except for what the Constitution provides, an Act shall determine, at the initiative of the Government, the services for which the Nation and the Departments, Districts, and Municipalities are responsible. In order to take care of the services for which they are responsible and to supply the resources for their adequate provision, the General System of Shares of the Departments, Districts, and Municipalities is hereby established.

The Districts shall have the same competences as the municipalities and departments for the purposes of distribution of the General System of Shares that the Act establishes.

For these purposes, the indigenous territorial entities, shall be beneficiaries, once they are constituted. Likewise, the Act shall designate the indigenous reservations as beneficiaries, provided that they have not constituted themselves as indigenous territorial entities.

The resources of the General System of Shares of the departments, districts and municipalities shall be earmarked for the financing of the services for which they are responsible, according priority to the health service, the services of pre-school, primary, secondary and intermediate education, and public services concerning drinking water and basic sanitation in the home, ensuring the provision of the services and the extension of coverage with an emphasis on the poor.

Taking into account the principles of solidarity, complementarity and subsidiarity, the Act shall establish the cases in which the Nation may contribute to the financing of the expenditure of those services which, in accordance with the determination made by statute fall within the competence of the departments, districts and municipalities.

The Act shall regulate the criteria of distribution of the General System of Shares of the Departments, Districts and Municipalities, in accordance with the competences which it assigns to each of these entities; it shall contain the provisions necessary for the implementation of the General System of Shares, incorporating principles of distribution which take into account the following criteria:

In the sectors of education, health, drinking water and basic sanitation: the population that has been taken care of and the population that shall be taken care of, the distribution of the urban and rural population, administrative and fiscal efficiency, and equity. In the distribution per territorial unit of each of the constituent entities of the General System of Shares, priority shall be given to factors which favor the poor, in the terms established by statute;

In other sectors: population, the distribution of the urban and rural population, administrative and fiscal efficiency, and relative poverty.

Competences may not be decentralized without the previous allocation of sufficient fiscal resources for their discharge.

The distribution of the resources of the General System of Shares of the Departments, Districts and Municipalities shall take place by sectors defined by statute.

The amount of the resources that are assigned to the sectors of health and education may not be lower than the amount transferred to each of these sectors on the enactment of the present Legislative Act.

The city of Buenaventura is organized as Special, Industrial, Port, Biodiversity and Biotourism Districts. Its political, fiscal and administrative system shall be determined by the Constitution and special statutes enacted to this end and, insofar as the latter do not contain the required regulations, by the rules which apply to the municipalities.

The National Government shall define a strategy for monitoring, follow-up and comprehensive control with regard to the expenditure of the territorial entities with resources from the General System of Shares in order to ensure the fulfillment of the criteria for coverage and quality [of services]. This strategy must extend the space for citizen participation in respect of social control and accounting procedures.

In order to apply and fulfill the provisions of the preceding section the National Government shall, within a period not exceeding six months following the signing of this Legislative Act, adopt, among other things, the pertinent rules defining the situations in which the adequate provision of services incumbent on the territorial entities is at risk, the measures which may be taken to avoid such situations and the effective determination of the required corrective action.

The Government must present a bill regulating the organization and functioning of the General System of Shares of the Departments, Districts and Municipalities, on the first month of sessions of the forthcoming legislative period, at the latest.