| Work Detail |
Only 343 public works, out of a total of 2010 that were not finished, survived the chainsaw.
According to official records, the province of Buenos Aires has 108 works that the national government kept in progress; the majority are water and road, two are linked to “workshop classrooms” and none to hospitals
“We have cut public works. We made it zero,” said President Javier Milei before the most important businessmen in the country. Nobody contradicted him. However, official information shows that despite the adjustment celebrated by the Executive there were 343 public works that survived the chainsaw. According to State records, the national government paid $23,268 million for them until April 18.
This reflects a considerable cut but refutes the thesis of total paralysis. In fact, as of December 31, 2023, there were 2,010 works in progress. That is, only 17% of them remained standing. Seen another way, the execution of eight out of 10 works that were not completed was interrupted. Among the “survivors”, projects on sewage or road-type drainage are repeated, although only two linked to the construction of “workshop classrooms” in vulnerable neighborhoods and none related to hospitals are observed.
These data arise from the analysis of the Public Investment Map prepared by the Public Works area, where the Government reports the details of its works, and from the Public Investment Project Bank (BAPIN). The latter contains the items on which the national administration allocates part of its spending, such as public works or equipment purchases. It is not a public access database. For this reason, LA NACION obtained this information through a request for access to public information that has updated statistics until April 18.
In turn, LA NACION contacted the Ministry of Economy, which coordinates the Secretariat of Public Works, to find out the criteria applied by the Government in the selection of works “surviving the chainsaw.” An official source from the area responded that those of national magnitude linked to road safety, prisons and flood control were prioritized.
Despite the official response, until April 18 the Government did not carry out any prison infrastructure work. For this reason, they informed LA NACION that only after that date, the Executive moved forward with works in the prisons of Coronda, in Santa Fe, Agote, in the province of Buenos Aires, and Benjamín Paz, in Tucumán. In turn, they detailed that it added the execution of a “priority” work at the Garrahan Hospital. They even maintained that these works are part of a group of 28 that had been interrupted due to “administrative observations.”
From the “priority” point of view, it can be understood that almost two out of every three uninterrupted works are linked to access to drinking water, sewers and aqueducts given that 30% do not access sewage drains or 20% do not access water networks. drinking water, according to the latest data from Indec. On the other hand, the only two construction projects for “workshop classrooms” or the fact that no hospital infrastructure projects were observed until April 18 contrasts with the poor statistics related to education and dissatisfaction with the state health system. This is the social dimension of public works.
Another area of ??the matter is politics. Paradoxically, public works built complexities in the Milei universe. First, because of the shock that caused the early resignation of the former Minister of Infrastructure, Guillermo Ferraro. Second, because it is one of the issues with which the Government accumulates complaints and even confrontations with the governors, among them, Axel Kicillof from Buenos Aires. At this point, an interesting fact stands out. The province of Buenos Aires is the one with the most works within the group of the 343 “survivors of the chainsaw.”
In this sense, once again it could be said that Kicillof and Jorge Macri are at opposite poles. According to official records, in Buenos Aires there are 108 projects being executed with national funds while in Buenos Aires there are none. The second province with the most works in progress that received financing from the Casa Rosada is Córdoba with 29; and the podium is completed by Entre Ríos with 25, most of them Road projects. Among those with the least are Santa Cruz, San Luis and San Juan with one, three and three respectively.
Beyond the geographical distribution of the works, and the consequent political impact that it may have, the economic dimension is not minor for a government that adjusts spending and does not negotiate fiscal balance. Official records show that, despite the steep cut, the government does not have much left to spend on infrastructure.
According to the National Directorate of Public Investment, the Government spent $23,268 million on the 343 that were not interrupted until April 18. The committed credit item, which shows what the Executive intended to spend during this year for all of them, amounts to $46,434 million. This means that in less than a quarter, half of what had been projected for the entire year was spent.
This data encounters a new complication as the analysis progresses. The spreadsheet of the National Directorate of Public Investment shows that at least 179 of the 343 works that survived the chainsaw have credit committed in their favor but have not yet received any peso in payments during this year. That is, more than half. The largest number of them correspond to drinking water provision projects that are part of an agreement whose responsibility is the National Water and Sanitation Works Entity.
Regarding this, the indications for public works with committed credit pending payment or those that are directly interrupted are not encouraging. The last modification of the National Budget published by the Government in the Official Gazette on May 9 took $102,148 million from the Secretariat of Public Works and added it to the Chief of Staff to assist other entities of the National Public Administration, such as example current expenses of state companies. The Budget always works as a roadmap of the priorities of the governments in power.
Entre Ríos is the province with the work that recorded the highest credit paid by the Executive, as reported by the Government. Until April 18, $2,376 million were invested in the intersection between national route 131 and provincial route 32. Despite this, the government led by Rogelio Frigerio expresses disagreement. According to official sources told LA NACION, the former Minister of the Interior is making progress in talks with the national government to unblock allocations for infrastructure projects in his province. “A stopped work close to completion generates an enormous cost if its reactivation is delayed for a long time,” they argued.
Furthermore, the second project to which the Government allocated the most funds is located in Greater Buenos Aires: the Buen Ayre road. According to official records, the credit paid amounts to $1,984 million. This project presents a particularity with political overtones. It is divided into three sections. The contractors for two of them are Contreras Hermanos and CPC. The latter is one of the companies that belongs to the Indalo Group, founded by businessman Cristóbal López, linked to Kirchnerism.
In parallel, and despite being the province that preserved the most works in the adjustment, the Kicillof administration speaks of “paralysis” and informed LA NACION that it sent written notes to the then Ministry of Infrastructure and the Ministry of Economy in which it requested to give continuity in financing more projects.
The group of the five works for which the Government paid the most money until April 18 is completed by the works on the Ezeiza – Cañuelas highway, in the province of Buenos Aires, and two in Río Negro (one for sewage drains and another for road type). Between them, they add up to expenditures equivalent to $4,258 million, according to the National Directorate of Public Investment. And between the five they would total $8,618 million. Put in perspective, this represents 0.01% of the estimated resources for this year, according to Open Budget.
Among the latest works with the most payments made by the Milei administration, only those on the Buen Ayre road are close to completion since, according to the Public Investment Map, the three sections have an average progress of 89%. The road type project in Río Negro registers 79% physical progress and the remaining three do not complete half of their progress plans.
In this way, public works confront the provincial and national governments with a problem that can be summed up in one phrase: “there is no money.” While the governors demand more funds from the President, the Executives plan is for provincial or municipal works to be completed with financing from those jurisdictions, according to an official source. An example of this is the negotiation for the construction of 187 child development centers whose financing, originally interrupted, depends on the Nation, but the Milei administration seeks to ensure that the jurisdictions where they are located can afford it.
Furthermore, in relation to the cost that could result in paralyzing more than a thousand works, the areas Secretariat, which depends on the Ministry of Economy, responded to LA NACION: "So far there has not been any type of penalty given that the different companies the need to have the structure and administrative circuits to move forward with the payment of the certificates.”
This analysis by LA NACION does not include the works of the Ministry of Territorial Development, Habitat and Housing, nor the Undersecretariat of Hydrocarbons since their Bapin codes are not available, data that would allow verifying whether said projects received payments from the national government and , in that case, how much money.
The president of the Argentine Chamber of Construction, Gustavo Weiss, indicated in dialogue with LA NACION that the sector lost 100,000 jobs, partly due to the slowdown in public works. Weiss, who attended the meeting of the Inter-American Council of Commerce and Production in which Milei also participated, expressed his support for the fiscal conduct of the Executive but indicated that the reactivation should come soon. “You cant hold on much longer,” he concluded.
Therefore, the 343 “surviving” works expose the social, political and economic dimensions of the Government cutback, its effects on the private sector and the dependence on national financing that provinces and municipalities suffer to develop infrastructure projects in a society. whose shortcomings show that they need them. |
