In a video released shortly after the Assembly approved the 2021 budget, Bukele assured that there would be an increase in the minimum pension this year. According to the political opposition, the increase must be reflected in the payment from 14 January.
“It seems that they are lying to the population, what is certain is that at the moment they do not even want money, they reject the money for the increase of the minimum pension and it is not in the budget of the Nation this year. “, said the deputy René Portillo Quadra, of ARENA, last night after the president Nayib Bukele sent to the Assembly 04:00 vetoes, among them, the one of the financing to raise the minimum pension of almost 200 thousand Salvadorans.
Although the initiative to increase the minimum pension from $ 207 to $ 304 a month came from the Assembly, Bukele launched it as a bet by his government in a video he posted on his Twitter account on 28 December, in which he alluded to the vetoes he would make and assured that the increase in the minimum pension would not be affected, placing it as a concrete fact within the 2021 budget, however, vetoed funding to carry it out.
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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 unheard of fact against the population that most needs a decent pension. his attitude is justified because this money went directly to finance the people who need it most, no one lives on a pension of $ 207, instead, $ 300 came to alleviate the economic situation facing retirees, now they add up even more in poverty when the president denies them a decent pension, “Portillo Quadra said.
But not only the increase in the minimum pension will be affected by the Bukele vetoes. According to FMLN MP Yanci Urbina, the overall budget of the Nation as a whole is at risk.
“Any part of this budget that is taken away leaves the Budget in its entirety in a complicated situation, because it cannot leave the payment to the municipalities without funding and what we find most serious is to try to leave the increase in funding without funding. the minimum pension, by the way, between 14 and 21 January must be applied to this increase for pensioners “, reflected Urbina.
On the issue, FMLN MP Victor Hugo Suazo explained that as of this day pensioners should be receiving their minimum pension increased to $ 304.
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“Pensioners of the ISSS or the INPEP or private system must complain because this increase must be applied from this month, this is part of the budget approvals and we hope that it will be put in operation, because this is clearly an approval that this Assembly made to favor the economy of the families “, Urbina deepened.
Suazo added that with Bukele’s veto, national spending for this year is “unbalanced,” which contradicts the Constitution and the Chamber’s rulings, which force 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 kept, any citizen can file a lawsuit for unconstitutionality and the Chamber should admit this lawsuit and may request as a precautionary measure that the budget (2021), ”Suazo emphasized and even added that the Constitutional Chamber could issue a follow-up resolution on existing errors in the matter.
In the veto that Bukele made on decree 803 on the financing of the minimum pension states that he rejected it because the credit with the IDB of $ 250 million that was authorized by the Assembly, was originally to “give support for the efforts and actions of the Government of the Republic, in order to contain the health crisis arising from COVID-19 and the country’s economic recovery, “although the government has already used more than $ 1 billion of the $ 2,000 millions that the Assembly authorized him to fight the pandemic.