Fernández confirms withdrawal of subsidies to Buenos Aires groups / Argentina News

President Alberto Fernández ratified the decision to remove the subsidies to the groups of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, showing his differences with Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, the head of the Buenos Aires government. The measure is underway, although he clarified: “it is not a decision that is made today and comes out tomorrow”.

“What everyone must understand is that it is an issue to work on and resolve,” said Alberto Fernández, regarding the dispute over the withdrawal of transportation subsidies.

However, the president was cautious about the time to resolve the issue. “It is not a decision that is made today and comes out tomorrow, you have to solve it seriously,” he said. According to calculations by the government of Horacio Rodríguez Larreta Horacio, the withdrawal of the subsidies would make the value of bus ticket urban passenger within CABA is doubled or tripled.

Interviewed on radio 10, in the “Secreto de Sumario” program, the president explained that the Nation’s idea is to stop subsidizing the port lines. “One looks at what a ticket costs in Buenos Aires and in the rest of the country and realizes that there is discrimination. CABA raises its autonomy, but being autonomous means self-financing, and the City has a hard time understanding that. Until today we pay it the police, but we don’t pay the police to Chaco or Río Negro; that’s what happens with energy and other issues,” he said.

“I am from Buenos Aires and I love my city and I celebrate the autonomy, but what I am saying is that it is not worth being autonomous to do what I want and that they give me the money to do it. If I want to do it, I have to finance it myself. It is not to put yourself in the place where the people of Buenos Aires put themselves, and specifically their rulers, “he added.

The problem that is generated, he concluded, is that “the rest of the country comes and they want the same as Buenos Aires” (by CABA).

Confrontation

Fernandez thus confirmed and redoubled the confrontation with the Buenos Aires management of Larreta, whose Secretary of Government, Jorge Macri, calculated that the eventual withdrawal of subsidies “is a decision made by the Government and will imply an increase.” Without the subsidies, he estimated, the rate would rise to double or triple the current level. And he attributed the official initiative to the fact that the Buenos Aires government is “from a different political background.”

Rodríguez Larreta, at a crossroads.

“We cannot have a bus that if you take it on the Metrobús you can get 50 pesos and another, with the same route, about 18 pesos,” explained Macri. “The City is willing to support the same scheme, share subsidies and make a shared effort so that people who travel by bondi do not suffer such a high increase,” said the Buenos Aires official on Thursday.

Larreta had already said that the national government “is attacking” the City, to which the presidential spokesperson, Gabriela Cerruti, replied that the Buenos Aires government “with the same criteria of autonomy should assume its responsibilities” in terms of transportation in the City. .

Third in agreement

In the dispute, the Buenos Aires government of Axel Kicillof aligned itself with the national government. His transport minister, Jorge D’Onofrio, affirmed that the province “is in charge of all the subsidies” of the groups that circulate through the Buenos Aires suburbs towards CABA to maintain the value of the current ticket. “In 2021, the province of Buenos Aires paid $122,000 million and this year it will be something more,” he specified about the financing of 242 bus lines. “The national lines that go from the province to the city are paid for by the province, because Macri by decree divided the responsibilities by kilometers,” said D’Onofrio.

The national government maintains that the Buenos Aires government must control, regulate and manage the resources of the 34 bus lines “exclusive to its territory”, of the total of 135 that share a route between CABA and Greater Buenos Aires (GBA), and that this criterion was raised by several governors and mayors.

The clash over the subsidy to urban groups is another chapter of the fiscal tug-of-war between the Nation and CABA, in which the City maintains that already in 2020 the national government reduced the Buenos Aires co-participation from 3.25 to 1.40%, plus a game for the payment of the police transfer, which makes a total of close to 1.75%, against 25% that CABA contributes to the national collection.

Hence, for example, that during the campaign for the legislative elections, the now deputy Ricardo López Murphy repeatedly argued that the national government takes no less than 93% of its resources from the City, since the 1.75% that the district receives from co-participation and transfer for the payment of the Police is barely 7% of what it contributes to national collection.

Transportation subsidies have now been added to that discussion.