BA gov't insists wages linked to funds

The Buenos Aires provincial government announced yesterday that this year’s provincial wage increases hinge on revenue-sharing reforms because the province needs to have enough funds to honour any future adjustment.

Meanwhile, Buenos Aires province Lieutenant-Governor Gabriel Mariotto insisted that the request for more funds should not be tied to electoral politics and said it was ridiculous that he was being compared to former vice-president Julio Cobos (who cast a deciding vote against President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s grain export duties bill in 2008) because of his attitude towards Governor Daniel Scioli.

Buenos Aires Infrastructure Minister Alejandro Arlía remarked that the province would have difficulties paying future wage hikes now being negotiated if revenue-sharing reform is not discussed along with an increase in the so-called Greater Buenos Aires Reparation Fund, frozen on 650 million pesos since 1996.

Arlía claimed that if the province received just 10 percent of income tax as was stipulated when the revenue-sharing agreement was first made, they would not be in this situation. The minister complained that the province cannot keep on increasing taxes and receiving only 19 percent of the nation’s total revenue when it represents 38 percent of the country’s population, at the same time having to support several pockets of poverty in the province.

Mariotto agreed that the issue should be discussed more thoroughly but should also take into account “the need to outline a plan which provides equality,” with regard to the revenue shared between provinces.

— Herald with Telam