The Argentine government admitted yesterday, October 31, that at least 1,000 beneficiaries of one of the country’s largest social programs have traveled abroad in the last three years to find evidence of benefit fraud.
All were suspended from the program, a bonus was attached to the conditions of employment and was called Potenciar Trabajo.
That’s 1,129 people who registered trips to countries without a border with Argentina during this period there is an exception for those who visited Peru, the country of origin of many immigrants from here.
“The exit from the country does not deserve a suspension or the presumption of irregularity, since there are beneficiaries who are relatives of immigrants from these countries or are immigrants from these countries living in Argentina,” said the Minister of Social Development, Victoria Tolosa Paz, on the social media messaging network formerly known as Twitter.
Benefits for 34 people who were on cruises were also suspended.
The case was revealed last week in a complaint filed by federal inspector Guillermo Marijuán. According to him, almost 160,000 beneficiaries traveled abroad in “circumstances clearly inconsistent with the high level of economic vulnerability required by the above program.”
Marijuán identified 29,076 air trips (without specifying the destination) and 817 cruise trips. There are still hundreds of thousands of travel records by other routes.
improve work
Potenciar Trabajo is one of the largest social programs in Argentina. It reaches 1.3 million people and generated 416 billion pesos last year, or 2.5% of all public spending.
Potenciar Trabajo was so named under the current administration of President Alberto Fernández and follows an Argentine tradition of income transfer programs tied to outsourced employment conditions.
The government distributes the budget for these programs to unions and social movements, which in turn distribute it to workingclass cooperatives and individual beneficiaries.
Since the collapse of the Argentine economy in 2001, and especially after the government of Nestor Kirchner from 2003, Peronist social movements became protagonists in the administration of these programs even during the government of the antiPeronist Mauricio Macri between 2015 and 2019.
One of these groups, Movimento Evita, alone was responsible for 55% of Potenciar Trabajo’s 416 billion pesos last year.
In this context, the main Peronist social movements in Argentina are united in a union called the Union of Workers of the Popular Economy (Utep). Report topic In Crusoe released the week of the first round.
Crusoe contacted the press offices of Movimento Evita and Utep to comment on the episode, but did not receive an official statement as of the publication of this report.
Choose
The case of irregularities at Potenciar Trabajo is…
Read more: Subscribe to Crusoé and support independent journalism.