2024-02-14 07:07:09
PAÃS. â
In the two previous governments, of Lenín Moreno and Guillermo Lasso, respectively, there was already talk of targeting fuel subsidies. However, it could never come to fruition. Now, President Daniel Noboa will try again without inheriting concrete advances in the matter.
On this occasion, the urgency is that Ecuador needs money to face the war, but also to solve the fiscal deficit, pay salaries to State suppliers, to local governments, so as not to neglect the external debt, among other troubles.
Although the first alternative of Daniel Noboa’s government is to propose increasing the Value Added Tax (VAT) in three points, from 12 to 15%, the targeting of subsidies is one of the cards that it would present in the coming days.
The two most recent national strikes, in October 2019 and June 2022, which left economic losses of USD 821.68 million and USD 1,115.4 million, respectively, had as a social demand the permanence and increase of the subsidies. In both cases, it was the indigenous movement that led the mobilizations in the streets.
The Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (Conaie) remains vigilant that the measure is not regressive and has warned of taking mobilization actions, in case the current President intends to eliminate that benefit../El Telégrafo.