The Accounting Actions of the Liberator in the Face of the Economic Crisis of the Republican Project of the Great Colombia (1827–1830)

Abstract

This text outlines the executive decisions of “El Libertador” Simón Bolívar, based on accounting as he managed the redirection of the Republican Treasury, seeking a point of equilibrium between costs and income that would allow delaying the imminent transfer of financial control of Gran Colombia to the hands of international creditors. This a theoretical reflection on an ignored side of “El Libertador” as an accountant, scheduler, and manager of public finances, these emerged booths among the products of historical-educational research on the accounting system adopted by the authorities in charge of the republican destinies of Gran Colombia. The points of attention, on which Bolivar’s accounting actions are revealed, are condensed in the inability of the republican project to develop an accounting policy that envisioned the way to meet the needs of information and control required by the treasury and, in the ideological polarization between the departments of New Granada, Venezuela and Ecuador that prevented the implementation of any feasibility plan to avoid the trauma of the dissolution of the republic.