The difficulties faced by Silvina Batakis to lower the deficit

The difficulties faced by Silvina Batakis to lower the deficit

The measures that it intends to implement in fiscal matters include that “They will have to live with what they already have”, that is, the Treasury will not authorize any expenditure that is outside the assigned budget. “Scarcity will be managed, giving priority to everything that does not paralyze management”, point out in economics.

They also try to achieve empathy with society with measures such as the decision to limit officials’ trips abroad to a minimum. “Large delegations” will not be authorized, nor will prolonged stays. “The trip abroad that is really necessary, because it implies the representation of Argentina, will be authorized”, but “long stays, excessive entourages and participations without much relevance are over”.

Surprise

They comment in the corridors of the Ministry of Economy that the minister was astonished by the expenses in dollars that each displacement of Martin Guzman. “He was sometimes accompanied by more than 10 people in each entourage, they stayed for several days and many of them received daily allowances of more than 500 dollars,” they specify. The excessive expenses of the former minister were also recorded, they say, within the country, “with payments for private planes, lunches and dinners.”

The data from the Treasury for June, the last month of Guzmán’s administration, show that in that period a certain containment of expenditures was attempted. According to the specialist Nadin Arganaraz, During the past month, primary spending grew in real terms by only 1% compared to June 2021. “Guzmán sat on the box and stopped paying, as happened with the census takers who worked for INDEC,” comment official sources.

In any case, the semester ended with primary spending that grew by 11.4% in real terms and interest on the debt that increased by 5.5% in real terms, with which total spending rose by 10.9%. Total income, for its part, grew by 5.1% in real terms. In this way, the primary deficit in terms of GDP reached 1.03% with the particularity that each month of 2022 the primary result worsened compared to 2021.

Sources from the Palacio de Hacienda also affirm that the 2.5% primary deficit for the year agreed upon by the country with the International Monetary Fundwas actually a limit established by former Minister Guzmán and that there is room to raise the imbalance to 2.9%.

Given that the IMF is committed to ensuring that the program applied in Argentina does not go off the rails, the Ministry of Economy speculates that an expansion of the deficit could be achieved that would the fiscal situation more manageable given the difficulty of meeting the stipulated goal.

In keeping with Batakis’ request, It is expected that in the next few days the Government will formalize the impediment of new employee hiring in the plant of the national public administration, decentralized organizations and state companies.

However, experts point out that More austerity measures are needed by the Executive Branch to comply with the minister’s directives.

Meanwhile, there also seem to be differences in the way of financing the deficit. As has transpired, the Central Bank would not be willing to raise the interest rate, from where it would be the Treasury that would have to assume higher costs to face its financing.

Source: Ambito

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