The analysis that can be subtracted from Hernández's article clearly invites us to a historical and comparative tour of the planning models that have been adopted in the country.
This implies making a cross-section in time, where the systems are comparatively different, but that does not skimp on the planning policies that were implemented in each scenario.
Thus, for example, in the time before 1958, Venezuela remained in an autocratic, dictatorial and state state, under a fully centralized economic system. The petroleum resources, which financed the nation's budget, were mainly destined to the modernization and construction of the country's road infrastructure, as well as the creation of companies and industries for the production of food and the creation of housing. However, as it is an environment without direct interaction with the world economy, planning was more static and not very vulnerable, which perhaps made it lacking in deep impacts to carry out more in-depth analyzes on the matter.
However, it should be emphasized that the transcendent and evolutionary dynamics that have led to the planning systems in the country by the public administration, has been the product of interaction and the permanent circumstances of each historical moment.
In this sense, after the fall of the dictatorial regime, in 1958 with a democratic system, an economy that opened its commercial relations with the rest of the world mainly channeled through the oil industry, adopts a different model of planning for the new country project. This was influenced by the currents that at that time allowed the economies to be mobilized under a defined directionality.
For example, organizations such as ECLAC in the 1970s, under a proposal of the import substitution model, helped many countries adopt policies and plan their economies based on the objectives established in the project. Similarly, it happened with many proposals from multilateral organizations such as the WTO, the IMF, the World Bank, among others, which at the time had an impact on the budgetary dynamics and therefore on the planning mechanisms adopted by Venezuela.
These facts undoubtedly allow the historical study of the country to assume that there have been several positions that have been adopted to manage resources and the distribution of income, which, from a more critical point of view, has perhaps been one One of the problems that always succumbs to government systems, the planning-budget relationship. Undoubtedly they are two twin variables that are inseparable, and as one is poorly structured, the effect and the repercussions will impact the other.
Many times, planning in the country is rooted in the budget, that is, it is planned based on a budget, and not always based on what is planned. For example, sometimes projections of the previous budget are made with a percentage increase in what is estimated to be inflationary levels, however, this raises the question, are last year's programs and projects the same for the year in question?
Is this how it works? Unquestionably NO.
However, supervision, fiscal evaluation, accountability, management evaluation, control and monitoring of the projects to which resources are assigned, the benefit to the population are overlooked. And unfortunately for this reason, mistakes continue to be made, and a vicious circle continues, with different political ideologies.
On the other hand, in 1990 the decentralization concept for the country began to be adopted, which allowed redirecting the policies in that direction, from then on the public administration assumed planning models of a more normative, more strategic nature. In 1998, a sudden jump and cut to the process that had been customarily and traditionally implemented, allowed, through a process of revolution, to direct the existing planning model for another with a totally radical political ideology.
At that time, the constituent model was presented, which enshrines and approves the new constitutional charter of the nation, between conflicts and party differences, and a democratic, participatory, leading model is exposed in it, with a mixed economy with active participation of the public sector and private, with a humanitarian social model of inclusion and equality, with governable and reliable public systems that guarantee social welfare. Therefore, it begins to assume a planning opposite to those promoted by the so-called capitalist, neoliberal and imperialist governments.
Year 2008, scenarios of conflicts, turbulence, ungovernability, chaos, uncertainties, latent political and economic crises, which allow to conclude that the proposed model did not meet the goals and objectives enshrined in the constitutional project, the efficiency and political effectiveness remains in judgment, the transparency and corruption always played with the confidence of the country.
Finally, we are immersed in currents that define and allow us to verify what many disciplines rightly begin to debate: we live in complex systems where chaos and uncertainty prevail, everything is fluctuating, we can do today and undo tomorrow.
Modern trends postulate prospective planning as a way to be able to plan in the future from the present, with a mechanism that allows flexibility and correction in progress when exogenous turbulence factors arise.
The novelty? An immediate future is planned from present perspectives with more precise estimates and projections, so that when we reach the term of that future, the project in question is not part of the past, insufficient and obsolete.
Therefore, planning being the process par excellence for the rationalization of State actions through structured organizations that articulate interdisciplinarity, relevance, opportunity, feasibility, as well as the utility and social impact necessary to carry out the transformations that the new times demand, with a clear notion of the future, and of the objectives and goals to be achieved.
Although this national reality establishes new coordinates for the action of the Venezuelan State, it is no less true that Planning has been subject to great and recent changes in its methodological conception, where the capacity for strategic leadership of the State resides fundamentally, in conceive these processes in their strategic dimensions, emerging the use of methods and tools such as scenarios, socio-political analysis of actors, among others, to face the complexity, uncertainty and conflict that characterize the national and international environment in which we operate on a daily basis.
