“There is room, without disrupting the fiscal goals, to distribute a little better,” he indicated in Arriba Gente.
Long look at science and technology
“It seems to me that we have some pending in budgetary matters and, obviously, the educational reform that is a commitment and a necessity requires some resources, but also, and that is where I am going, I believe that we have to comply with a long look, from results to long term with innovation, science, technology and research. During the pandemic we saw the importance of this sector. You have to put resources into it. In Accountability I am going to propose a gradual increase. If we generate an important project of science and technology, articulated, with goals, and based on the goals we commit to providing the resources, perhaps we can achieve a government-parliament agreement to gradually incorporate resources.”
Improve the salaries of some teachers
“It is also true that we must improve the salaries of some teachers, at least those who work in critical areas, because if not, what continues to happen is that newly graduated teachers go to the most important critical context places and those who have more training and experience, they migrate to places where they work more comfortably, because there is no difference that encourages them to stay in a place, where in addition to teaching reading and writing, they have to substitute, in values and in another education, what they Sometimes the family does not give. We have to improve those salaries.”
Commitment to public officials who lost salary
“Another of the demands that I am going to present in the Rendering of Accounts is that we have a commitment to public officials who lost salary in 2021 and must gradually recover it before or in 2024, as the Budget Law says. We cannot leave everything for the end. We have to comply with the legal and political commitment that there will be no salary loss at the end of the period.”
Another debate is that of medical certifications
“Another debate that is very important, and where we do not have a single opinion, is that of medical certifications, it is a pending debate. What we were discussing was assimilating the form of certification of a public official and the collection of those days for illness to that of the private sector. This has generated some distortions that COFE itself acknowledges. There are abuses. It is missing to put in the law that discovered an abusive maneuver is cause for dismissal.”
It’s time to give signs
“You have to see the macro level. I believe that the collection has improved, one looks and it is good news. The fiscal deficit has been falling. The collection of the State has been rising because the economy has been growing.” Gandini recalled that “we are taking a country, before the pandemic, with stagnation, with zero growth, with a significant deficit (5 points of GDP) and high unemployment. Unemployment has been falling, the economy has been growing, the deficit has been falling. These variables must be projected and see if there is fulfillment of the fiscal goal and, eventually, an over-fulfilment of the fiscal goal, that is, of the forecasts that were made. And if there is, I think it is time to give signs because we have been coming out of the pandemic and because we come with some external conditions that condition us a lot. If we have oxygen, we have to put more. For example, public investment generates employment” and highlights the public works that are being carried out and those that are planned.
Gradual elimination of the Additional to the Solidarity Fund
In the context of Accountability, Gandini presented a bill for the gradual elimination of the Additional to the Solidarity Fund.
“This additional was created in 2001 with a different destination: the UDELAR budget, and what was temporary became permanent and is more than 20 years old. And the university budget, which is much more than this, is paid by the State. Things have to be put back in place. In other words, professionals have to pay the scholarship fund, but the State has to pay the university budget through general income”, explains Gandini, who proposes that this be gradual.
Press Secretary of Senator Jorge Gandini
