What are the highlights of the CITY’S ECONOMIC EMERGENCY LAW

The Economic and Financial Emergency Law of the City approved this Wednesday in the Buenosairean Legislature with votes of the oficialismo and of allied deputies grants diverse tools to the Buenosairean Executive to face the pandemic of coronavirus and for the effects on collection derived from social and compulsory isolation.

The following are the nine highlights of the law:

– The government of Horacio Rodríguez Larreta is empowered to carry out the reallocation of budget items in order to attend to both the health emergency as the effects that the economic situation produces. The 5 percent ceiling set by legislation is suspended and the opposition maintains that there will be total discretion to manage 100% of the funds.

– Elimination or transitory suspension of specific damages, except those social benefits to people.

– Review of non-essential programs, suspending or postponing any program or action that is not critical or indispensable in the framework of the fight against pandemic. In this regard, the opposition criticized the lack of specificity in the measure, which could be applied to any program without distinction as to its importance for actors at risk.

– Bonuses and discounts of up to 30% on ABL and the Vehicle Patent for those who pay these taxes in advance. From the opposition it was pointed out that those sectors with higher incomes, those that can better face the crisis, will benefit from this.

– Suspension of precautionary measures and fiscal executions: AGIP will not initiate these processes or other similar ones until June 30, 2020.

– Review of contracts for goods, services, works and concessions. The increases in resources resulting from these reviews will be used to reinforce actions of the health emergency, the government said.

– Freezing of the staff plant and higher authority structures. There will be no new incorporations in any of the three powers or in the rest of the organisms reached by the law. Each power will establish its exceptions, for exampleor, in the most critical areas such as Health.

– Suspension of bonuses, prizes and salary incentives, with the exception of those granted in the framework of the provision of services inherent to the health emergency.

– Cap to the increase of remunerations. Authorities of decentralized entities and state companies and companies may not increase those remunerations that are already above that of the Head of Government, according to the equivalencies established.

How was the approval of the Economic and Financial Emergency law

The Buenos Aires Legislature approved the City’s Economic and Financial Emergency law, which grants various tools to the government of Horacio Rodríguez Larreta to face the difficulties of the pandemic of coronavirus.

These measures include the reassignment of items, the review of non-essential programs and contracts for goods and services.

The initiative was approved with 38 positive votes from the Blocks of Vamos Juntos, Partido Socialista, UCR-Evolución and GEN, while the Rejection of 21 deputies of the Front of All, Self-determination and Freedom and the Front of the Left.

The project had been sent to the Legislature two weeks ago from the Executive Branch and, during its treatment in the Budget Commission, received signals from opposition and allied blocs, delaying its treatment and jeopardizing its approval, which led to a series of modifications.

The most controversial point was the one that empowered the Rodríguez Larreta government to stagger the payment of wages for local state workers. faced with a virtual lack of liquidity in public accounts.

In this sense, Claudio Romero (Let’s Go Together) described this idea as an “error” that was “corrected”, but he did not fail to remind the opposition that in the history of the City, this measure had been taken by a Peronist government, in 1992, and a progressive government, in 2002.

The Buenos Aires Legislature during the session in which the Economic and Financial Emergency Law was discussed

However, opposition parties pointed out that the law says nothing about service location contracts, which puts “about 18 thousand workers at risk”.

It was also particularly criticized that, given the possibility of reassigning items above what is indicated in the regulatory framework, there were no greater parliamentary controls.

The creation of a special monitoring commission in response to the ruling party was insufficient in the eyes of the opposition.

On this point, Cecilia Segura (Front of All) said that the structure of that body puts the majority and the presidency in the hands of the ruling party and that there is a risk of “ending up as a commission to validate impunity.”

At the time of presenting the project, the Buenos Aires economy minister, Martín Mura, had dimensioned the collection crisis with an estimated drop of 80,000 million pesos.

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