On Friday, the President of the Republic, Luis Lacalle Pou, announced that he will submit to Parliament a bill to exempt meat on the bone (strip roast) from VAT, given a disproportionate increase in prices of both meat and other products of the basic food basket.
On March 9, Lacalle Pou had said that together with his economic team they were analyzing “mechanisms” to contain the price increases that he attributed to the rise in commodities as a result of Russia’s intervention in Ukraine. In any case, he ruled out the possibility of a price control.
Famine
For his part, in the last few hours, MPP senator Charles Carrera questioned – in his opinion column in Montevideo Portal – the government’s proposal to lower the price of barbecue.
In his column, titled: “La Carestía: la otros cara de la LUC”, Carrera expresses that it is undeniable that in Uruguay there is a deterioration in the purchasing power of the population.
“In recent years we have suffered a notable increase in prices in several of the products that make up the family basket. The numbers are eloquent; If the years 2020 are compared with 2022: sunflower oil is 75% more expensive, a kilo of rice is 34% more expensive, sugar is 43% more expensive, minced meat is 23% more expensive, noodles dried 76% more expensive ”, details the legislator from the Front.
“Tail Hurricane”
Carrera states that in a context of “tail hurricane” where there are beginning to be “signs of recovery of the economy, it is inexcusable that in Uruguay there are compatriots eating in popular pots, loss of purchasing power of the middle class and generalized famine where it is made very difficult to make ends meet”.
“Now it is argued that it is because of the war, but before it was the cursed inheritance and new reasons will probably appear in the immediate future,” questions the MPP parliamentarian, adding that while “the great majorities make tenacious efforts to make ends meet , a small privileged group of Uruguayans is enriched by the situation”.
He remarks that it is “inadmissible that in a meat-producing country, the refrigerators have record profits and people who live on their salary, retirement or a pension, cannot access the product.”
Responsibility of the LUC
Carrera points out that within the 135 articles of the LUC that are sought to repeal “there are provisions that directly affect the rise in consumer prices.”
In the production chain, “fuel is one of its fundamental elements. It is used for agricultural and livestock production and its increase in price directly affects the final price of the products”.
The legislator expresses that the increase in fuels, since the LUC was approved, has been a constant and this is due to the modification of the pricing system.
“As of the LUC, the Executive Branch has disregarded price fixing and has delegated said responsibility to the calculations of the URSEA. This is very harmful, because if there is a policy that must be regulated so that our country does not suffer the ravages of the global increase in oil prices, it is precisely the setting of fuel prices. Between 2018 and 2020 gasoline increased below inflation, but between 2020 and 2022 it increased a total of 36% ”, he compared.
patch proposals
Carrera states in his editorial that another ballast that directly affects people’s pockets is the incidence of inflation with respect to the rise in wages. “The president, instead of taking responsibility, goes looking for external factors such as the war between Russia and Ukraine. However, we all know that long before the war, inflation was already above 8%. For two years wages and pensions have been plummeting and poverty has increased”.
The MPP parliamentarian questions that “now, a few days before the referendum, they come out with promises of patchwork proposals to deal with this situation. It seems that the popular consultation of the 27 calls them to look for solutions to avoid an electoral defeat”.
“We all know that the true way to redirect this problem is by voting ‘Yes’ on March 27,” Carrera said in his opinion column.
