The national government convened a working group with technicians from the Government of the City of Buenos Aires to define the transfer of 32 lines of Porteño collectives that in 2021 demanded 14,600 million pesos in subsidies. In the meeting that will be next week, Nación will seek to recover that amount to allocate it to the Compensation Fund for Public Transport with which it assists the collectives of the rest of the country.
In this way, the government gives rise to a historical claim of the provinces, taking into account that the City is the only jurisdiction in the country that receives funds to subsidize lines of buses that transport passengers within the territory.The Buenos Aires Government Minister, Jorge Macri, victimized himself and said:”The collective ticket might cost $ 45 per decision of the national government.”
In 2021, Nación paid approximately 14,600 million pesos to subsidize part of the ticket of the buses that circulate exclusively in the City. Of this amount, regarding 13,850 million were destined to compensate tariffs for supply and demand and the rest for diesel oil at differential price.
In turn, last year the national government also contributed 28,000 million pesos to the Transport Compensation Fund to subsidize part of the transport costs in the rest of the interior provinces. “This Fund had been virtually eliminated within the framework of the Fiscal Consensus that the government signed in 2017 with the provinces. When President Alberto Fernández took office, the subsidy tripled, ” the secretary of Transportation of the Nation, Diego Giuliano, told PáginaI12.
In the 2022 budget, which was not approved by Congress, the Government aimed to double that amount to 48,000 million pesos. Now he’s looking to put that money into the Compensation Fund. This increase is a demand from the provinces to achieve ” greater equity in the distribution of transportation resources, so that the interior of the country has a ticket similar to that paid by the neighbors of the city of Buenos Aires.” In this way, the amount to subsidize part of the ticket of these 32 lines that circulate only in the City means approximately half of what the Treasury contributes to the Compensating Fund. As a result of this treatment, the provinces attribute the difference between the minimum passages in CABA with respect to the rest.
The minimum ticket in Capital Federal costs 18 pesos. In the case of Córdoba and Santa Fe, it is 59.35 pesos. In Necochea it costs 80 pesos; in San Martín de los Andes, 79.89 pesos; in Bahía Blanca, 76 pesos; in Bariloche, 62 pesos; and in Mar del Plata, 59.90 pesos.
” The fact that the national State continues to subsidize urban passenger transport lines that only go through routes within the City of Buenos Aires hurts the other provinces and cities that have a different treatment, ” Giuliano said .
The discussion, they clarify from the Transport portfolio, would be limited to the 32 lines that provide service in Capital and not to the interjurisdictional ones. It is that in reality there are 135 bus lines that transit through the City, but the focus is on these 32 that transit only through the Buenos Aires territory. The bus service of the Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires (AMBA), which covers the City and parts of the conurbano, would remain in the orbit of the national State like other interjurisdictional lines that Nation regulates and fixes tariff levels such as Resistencia (Chaco)–Corrientes, between Cipolletti (Río Negro)–Neuquén or between Paraná–Santa Fe.
The national government will also maintain the benefits that guarantee a reduced rate of transport to domestic workers, beneficiaries of the AUH and socially vulnerable sectors in all jurisdictions that own the SUBE system.
Nación intends to advance in this dispute under Law 26.740 of Public Transport of Passengers that was sanctioned in 2012. Article 2 establishes that ” it is the responsibility of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires to exercise exclusive jurisdiction and control over public passenger transport services, at underground and Pre-metro level; automotive transport and tram whose provision corresponds to the territory of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires”. In this framework, the transfer of subways to the City was carried out when Mauricio Macri was Head of Government of the City.
From the City they respond that an agreement will be needed between the parties and a ratification by the Buenos Aires legislature. The government of Horacio Rodríguez Larreta must analyze what it will do with the tariffs because it can maintain the subsidy or increase them. As a precedent, following the transfer of the subway there was an increase in the service rate of 127.27 percent –from 1.10 pesos to 2.50 pesos –.
