The Deliberative Council of the Buenos Aires party of Adolfo Alsina approved the 101% increase in the municipality’s road taxarousing complaints and anger from the producers, who, witnessing the session, could not prevent the increase.
In this way, said tribute went from a annual value of $3,129.85 to $6,295.97 per hectare to be paid in 6 bimonthly installments.
The increase comes from an increase of around 40% in the three items with which the value of the road tax is calculated, which takes the price of the wheat, the bull and the diesel.
In this project approved last Friday, the values of 1.226 liters of diesel, 0.680 kilograms of steer and 8.43 kilograms of wheat when last year the increase index was measured based on 0.876 liters of diesel, 0.486 kilos of steer and 6.022 of wheat.
According to what the former president of the Adolfo Alsina Rural Society and its partner, Enrique Moro, told Clarín Rural, the decision of the Deliberative Council was “Crazy, because not only was an increase approved that exceeds 100%, while the rest of the taxes are 30%, but also the disastrous state of the roads”.
“There were more than 100 producers in the venue, boos, insults, an army of police officers ready to evacuate the room.. All this in a city of 10,000 inhabitants, all acquaintances, some relatives, something like this had never happened,” Moro concluded.
In this sense, the rural leader maintained that “without discussion, there was the most significant increase in the region. A question of trust was broken: what we believed we had achieved between the institutions, the people and politics. What is happening here today has no priors. This is black and white, because every time this happens, no one wins. “This is going to cause insurmountable wounds.”
According to the local media Diario de Rivera, the session took place in a context of tension, with several crossings between the councilors of Freedom Advances (LLA)who voted against the increase with the representatives of the UCR (government party) and Fuerza Patriawho accompanied the project of Mayor Javier Andres.
From the ruling party they argued that it was essential to approve said increase in order to be able to maintain the road network of the municipality.
“The years-long decision to drastically reduce resources, bringing the rate down, generated a financial disaster that still limits the municipality’s capacity today,” UCR councilor Jorge Apud said in the session.
In this sense, he added that “a trigger agreement was agreed according to which, if within 6 months a positive change cannot be evidenced or shown, this same assembly will be reconvened to roll back the road rate to the current value.”
From Fuerza Patria, Carmen Calderón indicated that with the increase they seek “guarantee the connectivity of our towns so that the children reach rural schools, so that the ambulances arrive on time”.
“The repair of 2,500 km of network would have a cost of 5,550 million pesos, the municipal state hopes to collect 1,930 million pesos, that is, 34% of the cost. We do not want more machines stopped in workshops due to lack of spare parts”, he concluded.
Gonzalo Actis, from LLA, criticized the increase and assured that, at the same time that an increase in the road tax was decided, The mayor raised hierarchical salaries by 80%.
“Let it be clear that we do not want to defund anyone, we just want consistency between what is charged and the services provided. The 100% increase in the road network rate is accompanied by an 80% increase in hierarchical salaries when inflation was 30%“, held