| Work Detail |
The provincial leaders presented an ambitious plan, with more than 1,100 projects. It contrasts with the paralysis of more than 2,300 infrastructure works by the Nation. For these, the Argentines had disbursed $ 310 billion, which began to deteriorate after the stoppage. The fight over what will happen to these constructions after the transfer of responsibilities, which does not usually coincide with the sending of funds. The governors accumulate social claims.
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Infrastructure. The provinces have more than 1,100 in their portfolio.
The national government bases its budget cuts mainly on the brakes on public works. The governors seek to distance themselves from that logic in the run-up to the 2025 Budget and have infrastructure on their agenda. Many of them had to adapt their needs to the resources they were able to raise, given the adjustment to the funds received from the central government, which is beginning to accumulate social claims.
In the latest report on the “Federal Logistics Strategy” of the Federal Investment Council (CFI), the provinces highlight 1,143 central projects in the pipeline. These are divided into: road works (635), logistics platforms (164), air projects (103), railway projects (85), border crossings (81) and river-sea projects (75).
It is estimated that “more than 95% of public works are paralyzed throughout Argentina”
The works involve various axes of intervention, ranging from the development of rest areas for transporters, the development of online platforms for linking freight forwarders and transporters to improve the imbalance, the generation of new national and international connections, and the implementation of efficient systems for weight control.
This also includes improving access to ports and routes or expanding capacity and working on certain urban sections with high accident rates.
Of the total number of projects supported by the CFI, 37% are under study, 38% are closed, 14% already have financing, and 11% are in progress.
“Logistics is a central factor for the future of federal development. In a country with a large geographic area like Argentina, the logistical challenge is enormous. We have everything the world needs. We have to create the conditions to make economies more competitive and offer our production to the world,” explained to PERFIL the general secretary of the CFI, Ignición Lamothe, who was unanimously reelected last week.
Public Works
The paralysis of public works. Beyond the promotion carried out by the jurisdictions, the chainsaw implemented by Javier Milei hinders the development of most infrastructure works. Governors cannot sustain all the work they want in their administration to respond to popular demands or to the expansion of rights, such as access to public health, education or water.
On December 9, 2023, the Ministry of Public Works had 2,308 works in progress out of the 7,265 started during the administration of Gabriel Katopodis, which reached 100% of the countrys municipalities. For those completed, the State provided work to 480 thousand employees in the construction sector, according to official information.
For the projects that the President stopped, Argentines had invested $309.888 billion. Of these, 1,031 involve integrated water resource management, 763 involve urban, rural and care infrastructure, and 514 involve connectivity and road infrastructure. Since they were discontinued, the materials began a process of deterioration that devalues ??them and makes them substantially more expensive when they are taken up again, the experts explain.
Public works stopped in the province of Buenos Aires. Included in this list are 899 projects that had been started in Buenos Aires. The province governed by Axel Kicillof was objectively the most affected, perhaps not by chance, considered by the President as public enemy number one.
The halted works have begun to deteriorate, making restarting them more expensive
Even without transfers from the Nation, the Buenos Aires administration placed among its priorities the completion of some of these works, such as the child development centers (CDI). These are eighty complexes whose restart and completion require an investment of $23,624 million from the provincial coffers. They will generate an impact on more than 7,700 boys and girls from sixty municipalities, according to the projections handled by the local Ministry of Infrastructure and Public Services to which PERFIL had access.
“In the face of a national government that is a symbol of dehumanization, in the province of Buenos Aires we have shown that we are the symbol of care, the defense of rights and solidarity. We came to inaugurate with Kicillof, Andrés Larroque, Marisa Fassi, Gustavo Arrieta and its director Marcela the first Child Development Center for Cañuelas, highly anticipated by this entire community. Milei and Caputo should be here explaining why the San Ignacio neighborhood was going to be left without this space that they had to finish for early childhood,” Gabriel Katopodis posted on social media the other week. Among the first to be completed are also the CDIs of Quilmes, Exaltación de la Cruz and Pehuajó.
Among the mayors of the Greater Buenos Aires area, there are warnings about the lack of funding. In Morón, 534 houses of the Procrear Plan and the Interuniversity Center in the south were stopped. “The dream of a higher education institution that we planned to build was cut short by the decision of the Nation not to comply with the agreement signed with the municipality,” he criticized.
Transfer of responsibilities, and of funding? Some governors reached agreements with the Casa Rosada to transfer to them the possibility of continuing with the projects, but not always the funds. These include 20 of the 24 jurisdictions: Tierra del Fuego, Catamarca, Chaco, Chubut, Córdoba, Corrientes, Entre Ríos, Jujuy, La Rioja, Mendoza, Misiones, Neuquén, Río Negro, Salta, Santa Cruz, Santa Fe, San Juan, San Luis, Santiago del Estero and Tucumán.
According to the Chamber of Construction, 3,500 public works projects have been halted and 100,000 jobs have been lost
What is happening with public works in La Rioja? In La Rioja, the Nation halted eight child development centers, seven schools, and the new central hospital. All housing projects were also put on hold. The governor, Ricardo Quintela, raises as a banner in each speech the improvement in the quality of life of those Riojans who went from living in a cardboard and plastic hut to a three-room house made of material.
“La Rioja is the province with the most homeowners,” the president boasts in almost every speech, always in comparison with the total population of each jurisdiction. This is what the Angelelli Plan consists of, which is also part of those underfunded by the central government. The program uses exclusively state companies: “State companies do not seek economic gain, but social income,” emphasizes the candidate for the National PJ.
At the same time, the development of the new Center for Diagnosis and Treatment of Communicable Diseases (Ceditet) in La Rioja and the gas pipeline works, both of vital importance for the inhabitants, are being halted. This is without adding the roads, the provincial asphalt plan, the intervention of the downtown area and the construction of a new distributor at the Chacho Peñaloza roundabout, according to the list provided by the province to this media.
Salta and its public works. In Salta, 118 were being executed with national financing. The province and the Chief of Cabinet, Guillermo Francos, signed three agreements in June: of the total, 65 will be absorbed by the province with its own funds and the rest will be continued by Casa Rosada, confirmed to PERFIL from the governors office. "We are going to reactivate public works in our province," said the northern boss, Gustavo Sáenz.
The national projects consist of the largest ones, such as roads and 12 new schools that were in progress, confirmed the local Infrastructure Minister, Sergio Camacho. For those that the province will take over, specific agreements must be signed to formalize the transfer, which will include about 2 thousand homes that were stopped. In the meantime, the province continued with some 170 works included in the provincial budget, which had not been stopped.
Financing in Tierra del Fuego. The signing of the agreement with the Nation in Tierra del Fuego established that some works would continue with national financing, for which administrative matters are being managed so that they are actually completed. There are other works that the province undertook to complete with its own funds, such as the child development centers and the gender police station in Río Grande.
With an eye on the end of the winter ban, the Tierra del Fuego government is finalizing details for the full reactivation of a series of infrastructure works, as well as the completion of 500 homes distributed between Ushuaia and Río Grande, the islands Executive confirmed to PERFIL. "These are important works for Tierra del Fuego, which we had proposed to improve the quality of life for many residents of our province," said Governor Gustavo Melella.
Following the July agreement between the province and Francos, debts for work certifications began to be regularized, in addition to addressing a readjustment of prices of the contracts signed with the companies in charge of the works that were paralyzed with the change of national management. The Minister of Public Works and Services of Tierra del Fuego, Gabriela Castillo, assured that "an enormous job has been done, first political and institutional with the help of Governor Melella, to reverse this situation of paralysis and resume this group of works."
Source: https://www.perfil.com/ |
