Argentina’s Agencia Nacional de Discapacidad, or ANDIS national disability agency, has suffered severe budget cutbacks since President Javier Milei took office in late 2023.
The drop in spending has prompted the mobilisation of several different groups who defend the disabled, campaigning for the payment of benefits, their increase and improved salaries for the professionals working in the sector
At the end of last week, audio recordings purported to be of recently dismissed ANDIS ex-director Diego Spagnuolo, Milei’s close friend and former lawyer, leaked out via social media and various publications. In the clips, the voice believed to be Spagnuolo claims that Presidential Chief-of-Staff Karina Milei, the head of state’s sister, and other top officials received kickbacks from a corruption scheme involving the agency, a situation prompting various court raids.
With the focus shifting to the alleged graft scheme, Noticias Argentinas sought to interview a group of disabled workers at the ANDIS agency, to establish the situation inside the government body.
Many complained of “excessive work” owing to the significant cutbacks in the agency during Spagnuolo’s tenure.
“The reduction of personnel has resulted in a bad division of labour because each one of us employees staying on are burdened with much more work. If even the team of workers we had before were overwhelmed by the demands, imagine now with at least 500 less workers in different areas,” said one worker.
From the start of the current administration, ANDIS sectors have united in an informal and improvised fashion. The most pressing concerns are directly linked to attention of the citizenry, such as responding to consultations or claims for services like starting the paperwork for the CUD (Certificado Único de Discapacidad) disabled certificate, invalid pensions or joining federal programmes like Incluir Salud, which provides coverage for the beneficiaries receiving pensions without having made contributions and thus lacking access to any healthcare scheme or prepaid system.
Today, sectors of the communications, helpline and civic attention departments work jointly to answer calls because “that’s almost the only task they’re permitted to do.”
The situation has been aggravated in small towns or rural zones in Argentina’s interior. Spagnuolo “decided to close all the reference centres” which people used to approach to consult about the paperwork related to disability, reported one worker.
“You have to think of the context: not everybody inland has access to the Internet,” they said. “The centres were good because people had more personalised guidance close to their place of residence. They’ve all been closed down, including the territorial centres and that impacts us at ANDIS head offices, both the Nuñez headquarters and Hipólito Irigoyen, which handles the pensions.”
“People inland have us as their only channels of contact because everything was close to home but now eliminated,” pointed out the ANDIS employee.
The workers maintained that, as the disabled employees, they are made to be “absolutely invisible.” In some case they even “removed the means of transport to go to work,” offering them only the option of remote work.
This has “negative consequences,” said the workers, impacting on social aspects because they “lose shared space” with their colleagues, as well as “finding out what happens day by day” at work.
Other workers alleged the current administration “dislikes” having disabled people who need help for personal activities (such as being accompanied to the bathroom or served lunch).
The workers are made to feel like they should go without assistance, they said.
“It was always like this because the demand is historic but now worse. For the state, we disabled people, just like pensioners, cancer patients, children and people with problems making ends meet, are an expense,” said one ANDIS staff-member.
“For good public policies you need to invest money and the politicians have decided to rob it,” they concluded.
by Laura Impellizzeri, Noticias Argentinas
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