Due to the crisis, the Government is preparing to distribute Christmas boxes to more than a million and a half families

Ignacio Ortelli

10/21/2020 2:43 PM

• Clarín.com

• Politics

Updated 10/21/2020 2:43 PM

The Government is already thinking about the end of the year.

On the one hand, in a nod to energy companies that are going through a serious financial situation, he ratified the unfreezing of electricity and gas rates.

On the other hand, given the increase in poverty, it is preparing a special social containment operation to alleviate the crisis and prevent overflows.

With this premise, the food purchase process began and plans to

and plans an investment that will exceed

.

In the Casa Rosada they warn of the impact on the economy left by the pandemic and the prolonged preventive and mandatory social isolation that Alberto Fernández imposed in March, to stop the advance of the coronavirus and they work on several fronts to deactivate sources of protests in the streets.

"We want that after such a dramatic year people can spend the holidays in peace," they reason.

This premise supports the Government's decision to contain the official exchange rate: they point out that a devaluation similar to that of the blue would generate a rise in inflation that would be reflected mainly in food prices.

It would be a lethal combo, complicating the social climate even more.

Beyond the latest INDEC data, which showed that 4 out of 10 Argentines are poor,

to learn about the situation in the districts.

The scenario you heard was alarming, with areas where the demand for food

.

These are figures that are in tune with the calculation made by Arroyo, who stated that due to the pandemic, the number of people who receive food from the State grew from 8 to 11 million. 

In this context, and although from the opening of the circulation he hopes that there will be a rebound in activity that will decompress the situation, the President ordered the Minister of Social Development, Daniel Arroyo, to ensure in advance the products for the making Christmas boxes to distribute among vulnerable sectors.

After the scandal over food overpricing in which he was involved in the beginning of the pandemic and for which he had to eject his Ministry officials,

, forcing him to stock up in advance.

Due to the crisis and the increase in poverty, the purchase that Social Development will make this year will be larger than usual.

Thus, to make the Christmas baskets, it has already started seven public bidding processes, for about 431 million pesos, to assemble

containing sweet bread, puddings, caramels, nougats, peanut paste and raisins.

But Social Development sources assure that in the coming weeks they will advance with

.

"The number is being evaluated, but we are going to make all the necessary investment to contain the most neglected sectors," they assured from the area.

During Mauricio Macri's administration, according to officials from that administration, the average was one million two hundred thousand boxes, although

.

From one of the most populous municipalities in Greater Buenos Aires, for example, a Peronist mayor claimed before the inquiry of this newspaper that only "1,500 boxes" were distributed in the four years of Cambiemos' administration.

Meanwhile, in another smaller suburban district, a mayor affirms that he received "only 500 boxes."

Now, he says, they received the promise of the Nation that they will have "all the irons available to contain."

"I do not see that there is a possibility of overflows. Alberto is on top of the issue and promised us that resources and food will not be lacking," he concludes.  

Furthermore, although on a different scale,

.

Last year, still during the administration of María Eugenia Vidal, the Minister of Social Development, Santiago López Medrano, acquired some 150 thousand Christmas boxes that were already distributed with Axel Kicillof at the head of the government.

After the year of the pandemic, the Kicillof administration had to reinforce the purchase to cover more sectors: as anticipated by the Buenos Aires Minister of Development, Andrés "Cuervo" Larroque,

, for which it will allocate a ceiling of about 300 million pesos.