Hacienda (Finance Ministry) requires each infrastructure-law progress certificate to be "irrevocable" and "unconditional" even if the contract is voided, and says it is not debt

Strategic interpretation

Systemic: Two statements in the same document cannot stand together without tension: an irrevocable, unconditional payment obligation that survives the contract's nullity and can be sold to third parties, and the claim that this is not debt because the Cámara (Chamber of Deputies) approves each year the budget that pays it. The poles: the certainty creditors demand to finance long-term works, and the annual budget decision the Constitution reserves for the deputies. What is shielded is not the project—the contract can fall—but the collection right already issued. The builder and whoever buys its certificates win; the risk of the project failing stays with the State. Consequence: It falls to builders and developers in the federal portfolio, to banks and funds that buy or securitize certificates, to the Unidad de Crédito Público (public credit unit) of Hacienda, the Finance Ministry, and to the Cámara de Diputados, which in 2029 and 2030 will have to approve allocations for payments that in practice it can no longer refuse. And to whoever governs after 2030: if an audit or a court annuls a contract, the issued certificate is paid anyway. From there it follows that the debate over whether this is debt will take place not in the Congress that approved it, but at the rating agencies and in the next administration's accounts. Worldview: That an obligation stops being debt if it is called consideration for services and paid in annual budget items. What to watch: The total of certificates issued as of the end of 2027 and whether Hacienda reports them in any annex of liabilities; the first public securitization of certificates; whether any rating agency treats them as contingent debt; and, in 3 to 10 years, the first annulled contract whose certificates get paid anyway.