The government decided to take control of 180,000 social plans social organizations and transfer them to the orbit of the provinces and municipalities. These are programs included within the Empower Work, one of the central items of the Ministry of Social Development led by Juan Zabaleta, the equivalent of 15% of the total of 1.2 million beneficiaries.
This was confirmed to Clarion high executive sources, on the same day that ministerial authorities met with picketer leaders, who have been calling for an increase in quotas from Enhance Labor. It went to an intermediate room, waiting for a new meeting scheduled for next Thursday, but the Government again refused to allocate new income to the program in question.
The measure arises as an effect of audits being carried out by Social Development, which revealed irregularities within the social organizations that act as intermediaries between the State and the beneficiary.
And it occurs a few days after it became known that the Worker Pole It charges 2% of the income received by each of the beneficiaries that reports to that organization. Taking into account that it is $19,450 per month, it would be about $390 that is taken from the 60,000 people who charge through the piquetero organization. The monthly calculation gives $23.4 million that the beneficiaries stop charging and enter the PO.
Within the enormous universe of plans, the Polo Obrero is one of those that receives the most, as well as Foot neighborhoods, which has another 60,000 benefits. The leaders of both piquetero groups are Eduardo Belliboni and Silvia Saravia, respectively, and of the entire Unidad Piquetera front, which also integrates other leftist groups that receive plans and demonstrate against the government through camps or courts of the 9 de Julio .
The two have been systematically marching against the government and were present at the climactic meeting of the afternoon-evening of Wednesday in Social Developmentwhich finished fourth intermission but previously had discussions that reached the cries crossed between organizations and executive officials, led by Minister Zabaleta and Secretary Gustavo Aguilera. When the audits were discussed, from the organizations they questioned that “they come to spoil the meeting and the claim.”
As has been happening since January, when it was decided that each beneficiary can choose the executing unit where they receive the Work Promotion, Zabaleta denied them to increase the quotas of the plan. At least three times at the meeting, the minister ratified this refusal, although he was open to discussing the provision of more food aid and work tools.
The Minister of Social Development, Juan Zabaleta. Photo: Marcelo Carroll.
From the organizations they agreed to move the discussion until next Thursday without calling a protest. That day they will meet again, but the expectation of a rapprochement, especially in a context of removal of plans, is practically nil.
Among the 177,000 beneficiaries who will begin to receive the Empower Work from the municipalities or governorates are those who requested the change of Executing Unit, precisely because they had to pay a percentage to intermediaries.
The Empower Work is a program that represents a budget of $227.1 billion annually, which is controlled by the leader of the Evita Movement Emilio Pérsico, Secretary of Social Economy. Precisely Evita is the organization that manages the most plans, between 100,000 and 150,000, although unlike the Polo Obrero, it did not receive complaints of charging a contribution to its beneficiaries. Another 60,000 quotas, in addition, are controlled by Somos Barrios de Pie, by Daniel Menéndez, also aligned with Evita within Albertism.
Aligned with the government of Alberto Fernández, Evita was harshly targeted by Cristina Kirchner last Monday, at the event she led in Avellaneda. “If Evita lived…”, said the vice president in a sharp speech criticizing the movement led by Pérsico and Fernando “el Chino” Navarro for the way in which they coordinate the delivery of social plans.
Eduardo Belliboni, leader of the Polo Obrero, during a press conference in the middle of a traffic cut.
As Navarro had done on Tuesday, Persico also crossed Cristina. “He doesn’t understand poverty,” he said of the vice president in a radio interview. Cristina, like hard Kirchnerism, has been propping up a project that social leader Juan Grabois concocted and that promotes the creation of a Universal Basic Salary of about $13,500, that is, one third of the current value of the Minimum Vital and Mobile Salary, which would to collect seven million people.
So far this year, even without an increase in quotas, the Empower Work He sued the State for almost $150,000 million., 70% of the $ 227,100 million that it has stipulated for the whole year. The resources will not be enough, so the addition to the budget that Economy Minister Martín Guzmán has just confirmed will include around $32,000 million extra for that program. The same figure, approximately, will go to the Food Card, the other key item of the ministry, which depends on La Cámpora and is administered by the Secretary of Social Inclusion Laura Valeria Alonso.
