The governor of Jujuy and president of the UCR, Gerardo Morales, affirmed this Monday that “it is very unfair” that the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area (AMBA) “receives subsidies that are not received in the interior” of the country, called to rethink “the federal issue” and admitted that there are “differences” on the subject within Together for Change.
In this way, Morales again distanced himself from one of his partners in the opposition coalition, the head of the Buenos Aires Government, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, in the framework of the discussion between the administration of the Federal Capital and the national administration regarding the level of subsidies received by the City of Buenos Aires for public passenger transport.
“We are part of the Norte Grande. In the AMBA they receive the subsidies that we do not receive in the interior. The AMBA pays the ticket 18 pesos and we pay 50 in transportation. In energy, the AMBA pays five times less for electricity than what we pay in the interior of the country. The same with water,” said Morales by Radio Miter.
He added: “This country is very unfair. Between Escobar and La Plata, in that belt, which is the entire metropolitan area, is 56% of the formal work of the entire Argentine Republic., 80% of Mercado Libre’s sales take place in the metropolitan area. It is very unfair, we must discuss the federal issue.”
“They wanted to raise it at the Together for Change table. I asked them not to bring up that topic because we have differences. I come from the deep interior of the country where we have to pay 11 dollars a million BTU for the gas that we import to Bolivia, while the center and south of the country pay 3.5 dollars,” he added.
It is that in the meeting that was held on Thursday in Olivos between the presidents of the parties that make up the opposition coalition, the issue of transport subsidies was part of the debate, but Rodríguez Larreta did not get the support he wanted from his partners in the coalition.
The mayor of Buenos Aires sought support from his JxC partners in the face of the controversy that he has been maintaining with the Nation, which is analyzing transferring to the City the management of subsidies and transport rates for groups that circulate through the Federal Capital, a total of 32 transport lines passenger public.
As Télam learned, when the issue was raised at the JXC summit, Several references from the interior of the country told the head of the Buenos Aires Government that the issue was not going to be supported, considering that the bus ticket in the Federal Capital costs 18 pesos and the average in the interior is 50 pesos.
Some of the interlocutors told Rodríguez Larreta that the transport subsidy scheme is unfair, that it has historically benefited the AMBA and that it was necessary to have a more federal view of the issue.
Rodríguez Larreta has been attacking this possible removal of subsidies by indicating that it is “another attack by the national government against the city of Buenos Aires.”
This Monday morning, Morales publicly acknowledged what was discussed behind closed doors at the opposition summit.
For Morales, “in addition to macroeconomics, we must look at the real country and we must have a government plan that is federal, productive, developmental, that looks at SMEs, producers, small businesses, the countryside, the small industry.
“We have nothing to do with the thought of Alberto Fernández, less with La Cámpora and less with Kirchnerism, but there is a point where there has to be an investment plan that has to last 20 years and that all governments continue it, because I am convinced that the structural problems of the economy are going to be solved from the periphery to the center,” said the president of Jujuy.
Although he supports the removal of subsidies to the city of Buenos Aires, which he described as “doing justice”, Morales sought to detach himself from the position of the national government and assured that he must take the same position with respect to other jurisdictions, as he also stated on CNN Radio .
Morales’ gaze on the subsidy was not reduced to transportation but “also energy and water”, because he considers that “most of the subsidies are concentrated in the metropolitan area.” Therefore, he considered that “the Government has to treat them all equally, and that there be a more equitable relationship of subsidies for the entire Argentine Republic.”
He added that “it is much easier to govern the city of Buenos Aires. You have to order an issue that is the conflicts, the cuts in the streets, the violence, which are pending matters, not only for CABA but also for the AMBA. I don’t know if telling this truth about the injustice in the price of transportation brings me more or less votes, but the truth is the truth”.
