In a video released shortly after the Assembly approved the 2021 budget, Bukele assured that there will be an increase in the minimum pension this year. According to the political opposition, the increase should be reflected in the payment from 14 January.
“It seems that I am lying to the population, what is certain is that at this moment they do not want money, they reject the money to increase the minimum pension and it is not in the Nation’s budget this year,” he said. ARENA representative René Portillo Cuadra last night after President Nayib Bukele sent four vetoes to the Assembly, including funding for raising the minimum pension of nearly 200,000 Salvadorans.
Despite the fact that the initiative to increase the minimum pension from $ 207 to $ 304 a month came from the Assembly, Bukele launched it as a bet of his government in a video he posted on his Twitter account on 28 December, in which he published Allusion to the vetoes he will make and assured that the increase of the minimum pension will not be affected, placing it as a concrete fact in the 2021 budget, however, he vetoed the financing for its realization.
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“In an unprecedented act, the President of the Republic opposes the increase of the minimum pension from $ 207 to $ 304, it is a totally inexplicable and unprecedented fact against the population that needs the most a decent pension. Their attitude is not justified because this money was directed directly to finance the people who need it most, no one lives on a pension of $ 207, instead, $ 300 came to hit the economic situation with which retirees are facing, now they are adding even more poverty because the president has denied them a decent pension, ”said Portillo Cuadra.
But not only the increase in the minimum pension will be affected by Bukele’s vetoes. According to FMLN MP Yanci Urbina, the general budget of the nation as a whole is in jeopardy.
“Any part of that budget that decreases leaves the whole budget in a complicated situation, because it can not leave the payment of municipalities without funding and what we find worse is to try to leave the increase of the minimum pension without funding, By the way, between 14 and January 21, this increase should be applied to pensioners “, reflected Urbina.
In this regard, FMLN MP Víctor Hugo Suazo explained that from this day pensioners should receive the minimum pension increased to $ 304.
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“Retirees of ISSS or INPEP or the private system must complain because this increase must be applied starting this month, which is part of the budget approvals and we hope that it will be put into operation, because this is clearly an approval that this Assembly favored the economy of the families “, Urbina deepened.
Suazo added that with Bukele’s veto, national spending for this year remains “unbalanced”, which is contrary to the Constitution and the Court’s rulings, which require the government to have a 100% funded budget.
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“Obviously it is unconstitutional, the budgetary balance required by the Constitution is not maintained, any citizen can submit a request for unconstitutionality and the Chamber should admit this request and can request as a precautionary measure that the budget not enter into force (2021)”, underlined the. Suazo and even added that the Constitutional Chamber could issue a resolution following the existing decisions in this regard.
In Bukele’s veto of Decree 803 on the financing of the minimum pension, he states that he rejected it because the $ 250 million IDB loan authorized by the Assembly was originally “supporting the Government’s efforts and actions.” Republic, to contain the health crisis derived from COVID-19 and the economic recovery of the country “, despite the fact that the government has already used more than 1 billion dollars out of the 2 billion dollars that the Assembly has authorized to fight the pandemic.