Uruguayan government’s accountability bill arrives at Parliament for debate

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The bill of Accountability of the Executive of Luis Lacalle Pou arrived this Wednesday at the Uruguayan Parliament for its analysis and subsequent approval with possible changes to the Budget approved in 2020 for the five years of mandate.

The bill, where the government coalition will have to account for its actions 2020, was delivered around 7.15 PM (22.15 GMT) to the Uruguayan vice-president and president of the General Assembly Beatriz Argimón, by the Minister of Economy and Finance, Azucena Arbeleche.

The accountability bill will first enter the House of Representatives for discussion and, once approved, it will pass to the Senate for final approval.

One of the novelties of the bill, which is made up of some 300 articles, is the new income destined to the Coronavirus Fund, created by the Executive branch to alleviate the health, economic and social crisis caused by covid-19 in the country.

Although Lacalle Pou declared at the beginning of June in a television interview that the bill sent by the Executive would seek “zero expenditure” except “some specific increases”, the economic team ratified that there would be substantial increases.

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Arbeleche announced last June 10 that, although the funds established in the Budget will be maintained, US$980 million will be added to the Coronavirus Fund, and US$50 million will be allocated to an early childhood assistance program foreseen for 2022.

On the other hand, according to local newspaper El País, the Minister of Economy and Finance expects that the bill will have “few modifications” in Parliament. Still, she is aware that there will be “pressures” both from the unions and from Cabildo Abierto, one of the governing coalition partners, which expressed certain disagreements.