Buenos Aires Province Governor Axel Kicillof announces wage increase for state workers

Buenos Aires Province Governor Axel Kicillof on Monday announced a 13.5 percent wage hike for state employees, police, teachers and security forces.

At a press conference, the Peronist governor said the raise would be for this month. He also announced an increase of 110 percent increase in ordinary and extraordinary family allowances, a move that will benefit more than 100,000 families, and a 46 percent increase in minimum retirement pension and non-contributory payments.

"We are making a great effort to protect the incomes of the people of Buenos Aires [Province] in the face of the inflation caused by the national government's economic programme," said Kicillof.

The governor also said that funding for the provincial Community Development Ministry would be boosted, along with scholarships for children and adolescents. Allocations for the Servicio Alimentario Escolar school meal programme have been doubled, along with the MESA food aid programme that reaches  more than two million families.

Kicillof accused Milei of not fulfilling the obligations he faces under the Constitution and accused the La Libertad Avanza leader of making pensioners and workers pay for his economic programme.

“After adjusting pensioners and workers, the national government wants to create a problem with the benefits provided by the provinces: it is not just a matter of shrinking the state, but of disintegrating its capacities,” argued the Kirchnerite leader.

"I invite the president to come out of his confinement and visit the Province of Buenos Aires, the neighbourhoods and see the result of the brutal austerity he is carrying out," said the former economy minister, who said he was trying to give back residents “some of what Milei has taken away from them.”

Kicillof argued for the importance of state contributions to provincial coffers.

''With taxes we pay the salaries of 100,000 police officers, 25,000 health professionals, 300,000 teachers and professors. We repair schools, we open schools, we open hospitals, we equip the police, we asphalt roads and streets, we feed children in schools,'' he declared.

– TIMES/NA/PERFIL