The former president of the Central Bank of Uruguay (BCU), Diego Labatwho is shaping up to be a possible minister of Economy and Finance (MEF) in a possible government of the presidential candidate of the National Party (PN), Alvaro Delgadoavoided entering into a discussion about the wage indexation and harshly criticized the plebiscite to reform social security proposed by the PIT-CNT.
After the party plenary, the former BCU leader avoided stating a position on a possible deindexation of salaries, after he also economist Gabriel Oddonewho would be the head of the MEF in the event of an electoral victory of the presidential candidate of the Broad Front (FA) Yamandú Orsihe hinted at in a recent interview.
“I think it is a topic that is a little deeper than the superficial debate that has taken place,” said Labat and asked: “Why is there indexation? That means that salaries are corrected once a year or once every six months, and that is because for many years we had a inflation very high, and not only very high, but it also failed to meet the goals it set.”
“Before starting to discuss indexation or de-indexation, the first thing we have to do is to comply, and that was what we proposed from this government in terms of reducing inflation and proposing a target,” he continued.
In recent days, Oddone has shown himself close to the idea of making the Salary Tips and use “de-indexing”. In this regard, he argued that it would not only be feasible to de-index wages, but also prices in the economy.
“In this economy, we have many private contracts that have clauses in which there is a mechanism that triggers an adjustment of the contract, whether it is the exchange rate or inflation. We have to work on that because it is part of the indexation of the economy,” Oddone said in this regard.
“It is an irresponsible plebiscite, without making calculations”
As regards the PIT-CNT plebisciteLabat was blunt: “It is a plebiscite that is a great concern, presented irresponsibly without showing numbers, without making calculations. They only show some of the nicer parts of the proposals, but they forget to tell people the costs that all of this entails.”
“Someone will end up paying the costs of the responsibility for mismanagement, (and) the confiscation of Uruguayans’ savings,” he said.
Source: Ambito
