The stalled La Plata railway construction site is a casualty of a crackdown on public-funded construction works under Argentina's new self-styled libertarian President Javier Milei, who came to office pledging to “chainsaw” through government spending. - REUTERS
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 The aging train tracks along this rail line through the outskirts of Buenos Aires were
00:05 being replaced with new ones.
00:07 Then, one day earlier this year, work stopped.
00:10 You can see exactly where the new rail ties end.
00:15 Augustin Pecora is an engineer on the site.
00:18 "The project had approximately 60 people working in two shifts.
00:26 In the morning shift there were 30 people and in the night shift another 30 or so.
00:32 And today, with the work paralyzed, we have six people."
00:36 The stalled La Plata railway construction site is a casualty of a crackdown on public-funded
00:41 construction works under Argentina's new self-styled libertarian president Javier Millet, who took
00:46 office in December.
00:49 Millet, a right-wing economist, came to power pledging to "chainsaw" through government
00:55 spending, which he blames for the country's worst economic crisis in decades.
00:59 Tens of thousands of jobs have been cut in construction alone.
01:03 Pablo Vazquez had worked on the railway.
01:06 "I went there on Friday and without prior warning they called us and told us, 'Well,
01:12 guys, this is as far as we've come.
01:15 We can't keep going any longer.'"
01:17 Vazquez said he had never been without a job for more than a month in the 28 years he has
01:23 worked in the railway sector.
01:25 Now he is struggling.
01:28 Signs announced paralyzed projects, such as this one repaving a road or this one constructing
01:33 a school.
01:34 Millet has halted most public infrastructure works around the South American country, helping
01:39 improve the state's finances, but battering construction activity.
01:43 Argentina's economic activity and construction plunge is nearly unprecedented, with the recent
01:48 slide on par with the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the government shut down large
01:53 parts of the economy to halt the virus' spread.
01:56 Pablo Cuantin runs a Buenos Aires-based construction firm working on the La Plata Rail project.
02:02 "All of a sudden, they turned the lights off on us.
02:07 Contracts don't work.
02:08 The payments don't come through.
02:09 Our obligations have become extremely complicated.
02:13 So today, the situation in our sector is extremely serious."
02:19 He told Reuters he had been forced to lay off 600 of his 1,000 employees so far this
02:24 year because almost all of the firm's 24 public works projects were halted.
02:29 The cutbacks were a major shift and gamble by Millet.
02:32 He has so far avoided sparking anger in the streets, despite his austerity campaign.
02:37 Social unrest is one of the biggest threats to Millet's tough medicine reforms.
02:41 At least some Argentinians worry the president may not realize how difficult it is to swallow.
02:46 "This man has to realize what is happening.
02:52 I don't know if he doesn't watch the news because he says that everything is fine.
02:56 But we see many people unemployed, people on the streets, sleeping on the streets.
03:03 So we are not doing well.
03:05 There are soup kitchens that don't have enough to feed people and that's regrettable.
03:09 You can see that there is hunger all over the country.
03:11 So we're not doing well."
03:13 [FOREIGN]