COSTA RICA NEWS – The 20th report of the State of the Nation confirmed that neoliberal policies of the last administrations turned Costa Rica into a more unjust, unequal and more expensive country, said today Albinio Vargas, trade union leader.
For the Secretary General of the Asociación Nacional de Empleados Públicos (ANEP) – National Association of Public Employees union, the yearly scientific study showed once more that liberationist administrations of Oscar Arias and Laura Chinchilla (2006-2014) left Costa Ricans at the slope’s edge.
Those governments made Costa Rica also in a country violator of peoples’ rights and concentration of wealth in a few hands, he said as quoted by Extra daily in its original version.
Costa Rica makes majorities poorer, promotes the disappearance of middle income sectors and looks for a wrong-sided competitiveness, reducing and violating labor rights, he added.
That scenario suggested the need for changes in the tax system from establishing a world rent and a global-universal rent, while rejecting a progressive increase of the tax on aggregate value (IVA). The trade unionist also proposed a tax burden, even temporary, on financial-banking operations to back strategic policies of youth employment and a plan of fiscal contingency, on the progressive side and for at least two years.
He added to the latter the eventual reversión of the budget cuts, particularly in public services for social purposes and the strengthening of public employment in social services now lingering that should fight poverty and inequity.
He called to declare a state of emergency in the Costa Rican Social Security in order to strengthen and enhance its capacity to respond and improve the attention to the population endowed with social security.
Vargas exhorted to eliminate the presidential veil on the Labor Reform, in order to reduce violations to labor laws, as well as modify structurally and strategically the levels of minimum salaries, among others.
He warned the nation is headed to social confrontation in order to solve the social conflict that worsens day by day, he sentenced.
This report made by a team of researchers linked to the four state universities and the Ombudsman, was presented this Tuesday with updated analysis of Costa Rica.
Based on data of the International Comparison Program of the World Bank, specialists confirmed on this occasion that the cost of living in this country is almost 20 percent higher in goods and services than the average of 15 Latin American nations.
Source: Prensa Latina
