BA province has a deficit of 20 Billion pesos, Vidal warns

Cabinet Chief Marcos Peña and María Eugenia Vidal hold a press conference at the Pink House.

Buenos Aires province Governor María Eugenia Vidal said the provincial deficit reached 20 billion pesos as she highlighted the assistance by the federal administration to meet the payments of salaries and year-end bonuses.

“All the opposition (parties) are aware of the level of difficulty the province goes through; that is why we are here, to guarantee the payment of the year-end bonus. Today, we have a deficit of 20 million pesos, with debts with the IOMA and the Banco Provincia, school transport, prison food and summer camps, in Social Development and Health (areas), which do not have the necessary supplies. We have to reorder the accounts and show predictability,” Vidal said today during a press conference she held along with Cabinet Chief Marcos Peña.

The governor was also queried about public workers in BA province and she affirmed her administration was planning yet no “staff reductions.”

“We are not planning a staff reduction in the province. That who worked and wants to be part of this team and wants to put the Province back on track, has his job guaranteed; that who does not, doesn’t,” she said but questioned the amount of high-ranking positions in public companies as well as political posts. “In a situation like the one the province is going through our obligation is austerity, to show a smaller and efficient team.”

Both Vidal and Peña refer to the impossibilities of paying an extra bonus for state workers this December. “Not all the unions have brought that demand. I have met with teachers unions. I think it is only one union and I will receive all of them, I will listen to them. We began a different stage, but I will speak to them with the truth,” she insisted.

“At a national level, the priority is to take care of workers’ pockets, of Argentineans’ to work in the economy and protect jobs. We have to put the country’s economy back to work,” Peña said.