RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – A new survey in Uruguay reaffirmed that today the economy represents the main concern of the population, as expressed this time by 40% of the people consulted.
Thirty-two percent pointed to insecurity, followed by unemployment (20%), and rising prices and inflation (19%), according to Equipos Consultores.
For the former Undersecretary of Finance, Pablo Ferreri, having just completed its first two years, the current right-wing coalition government has no more excuses to face the problems reflected in the survey.
He alluded in such sense to the end of the health emergency due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the ratification of the Urgent Consideration Law (LUC), and the failed narrative of the “cursed inheritance” of the previous Frente Amplio governments or the “stick in the wheel” of the opposition.
“Inflation continues to eat part of the salary, just as it does with the passivities, and we are heading towards the third year of loss of the real value of the same,” he warned.
Ferreri said that if relevant coalition partners such as the Cabildo Abierto and Colorado parties propose additional measures to the few adopted by the Presidency to combat the effects of inflation, “they clearly say that the measures coming from the executive economic team are insufficient”.
In an article, the expert accountant asked what the government intends to do to mitigate the effects of the generalized rise in prices, particularly in food, which mainly affects the lower-income sectors, and in the long term to combat the local causes of inflation.
He also questioned calling business people and workers to re-discuss the wage increases foreseen in the Wage Councils or if the government will expand the products on which tax exemptions will be applied.
He added, on the other hand, that the structural reforms that the country needs to grow at rates higher than the two percent that the Ministry of Economy itself marks as the trend rate “are conspicuous by their absence, there are no more excuses; strategic vision and clear leadership are needed to move forward”.