The agricultural producers of
Villa Saralegu
i, a district that covers 106,000 hectares, located 130 kilometers north of the city of Santa Fe, said enough.
Fed up with the "fiscal voracity" of the
community chief, Walter Sola,
after receiving the road tax bill with an increase of 430% year-on-year, this Wednesday, in a meeting at the Rural Society of San Justo (SRSJ), they decided not to continue paying that contribution.
The conflict has been going on for a long time.
Already in 2022, Sola wanted to bring the road network rate from 3.6 liters of diesel per hectare and per year to 4.4 liters, to which the producers opposed, not only because of the magnitude of the increase but because the contribution was It is updated together with the price of fuel and, in addition, the increase was ordered in February 2022 when the limit established to do so was December 2021. "We exhausted all instances, Chambers of Legislators, the Ombudsman's Office, and in the third hearing, when Sola It had to be presented, they released the ordinance for
a new increase in 2023 that brings the rate to 8 liters
, ”said
Leonardo González Kees
, a 47-year-old cabañero producer and graduate in Economics, member of a family with a long agricultural tradition in Villa Saralegui.
“
If you compare the first ballot of 2022 and the first of 2023, the increase is 430%
,” González Kees remarked.
It was the straw that broke the camel's back, from there they said “enough”.
After ten years of Sola's management, "the roads are not good at all, they do not present the expense reports that they are obliged to do, the town has a lot of deficits in health, education and security," said the producer, For this reason, he maintains the decision of the producers "
was fed up, we said enough to the fiscal voracity
".
At the moment, they received the first of the six 2023 bills for the road network fee and they do not intend to pay it.
They await a satisfactory answer before April, when the second will arrive.
"
That we are firm in not paying, we are firm
," they underline.
Comparative increase in the road tax in Villa Saralegui.
More than 60 agricultural producers from the area participated in the meeting and the national deputy José Luis Espert
was also present
.
"He made a great contribution, not only as a legislator but as an economist, he cleared up a lot of doubts for us," said González Kees.
"Together with my team and the SantaFe producers present, we signed a
Request for Access to Public Information
. It is important that these problems are made visible because it is the only way that politics will be conditioned not only to
accountability
but also to to
give us something in exchange for what we paid
," said the deputy.
At the time, they signed new notes to send to different estates so that they back down with the "abusive" rise in the road tax.
Likewise, it was resolved to file a
criminal complaint against the community chief, Walter Sola, for embezzlement of public funds and illicit enrichment
.
“We don't know where our money is going,” González Kees said.
For this reason, in 2022, together with a group of producers, they filed the complaint in Municipalities and Communes, they also appeared before the provincial senators Felipe Michlig and Raúl Gramajo, and in the Ombudsman's Office in charge of Jorge Henn.
A communal chief with a violent history
In October 2022, Clarín Rural published a note telling about
the beating that Walter Sola and his son, Nicolás, had inflicted on Leonardo González Kees in the Commune
when the producer approached to demand the removal of one of his gates - without prior notice - that the communal chief had arranged on a road.
According to the cabañero, while he was asking Sola why they had done it and without any discussion, both began to beat him brutally without him being able to defend himself.
"The two of them beat me, I don't know if it was five or ten minutes, I fell to the ground, I only managed to cover my head while they continued to hit me on the back, arms, head, everywhere," he said.
González Kees was savagely beaten by the community chief Villa Saralegui and his son.
"
We are going to make you shit and if you upload the video, you are a ticket,
" they told him, to later throw and destroy the producer's cell phone in which he was recording the claim he had gone to make.
Fortunately, a police officer who was in the Commune was able to rescue him, protect him, and upload him to his cell phone to get him out of the place in the midst of the beatings that continued even when González Kees was already in the car.
For the fact, the communal chief is charged with damages and minor injuries.
González Kees after being beaten by Walter Sola and his son, Nicolás, in October 2022.
The producer indicated that "Sola is an aggressive person who already has situations of beatings to other people, even some who wanted to present themselves as candidates for community chief." And he highlighted the large amount of resources that he has available for the collection for maintenance of roads, warning that "their way of life and their expenses in view, both in town and through social networks, do not match the income of a communal president."
Sola has presided over Villa Saralegui since 2014, he was elected by the Civic and Progressive Front but then, in 2021, he switched to the Frente de Todos.
Since he took office, according to González Kees, he has been carrying out questionable policies and "great fiscal voracity."
"It is very difficult to produce in these conditions. I am physically and morally beaten but we have to move on. It is as they say, what does not kill you, strengthens you," the producer had said after the beating, last October. Today, together to other producers in the area, continues to fight to prevent the excessive increase in the road tax and demanding the rendering of accounts of public income and expenses in the commune of Villa Saralegui.