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ARGENTINA-ECONOMY-POVERTY
Food on the table the priority for poor Argentines
BUENOS AIRES, Sept 12, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – The giant pots simmering in Dagna
Aiva’s kitchen explain the long line of people outside her house located in a
gritty district of southern Buenos Aires, where Argentina’s economic crisis
is hitting locals hard.
Aiva feeds 200 people a day from those steaming pots in Villa 21-24, the
urban coalface of Argentina’s economic crisis.
For hard-bitten locals on its tough streets, talk of stock markets and the
strength of the safe-haven dollar is a risible middle-class obsession — here
the priority is simply putting food on the table.
“I don’t have any dollars, what can they do for me? There are other basic
needs I have to find a solution for,” says Aiva.
“We must give priority to other things, to pay the day to day, to eat
every day,” the 48-year-old activist adds.
A long, silent line forms in the alley outside as women with toddlers, the
elderly and disabled shuffle up to her kitchen door, shopping bags ready to
take away food.
Inside, women wearing aprons and hair covers ladle meat and vegetables
from the pots into Tupperware containers.
Argentina’s economic tailspin has seen the peso lose half its value,
unemployment soar and the economy shrink by 5.8 percent in the first quarter.
Argentines have seen their earnings, savings and purchasing power diminished.
– ‘Zero poverty’ –
Avia’s home houses the local social center called “Casa Usina de Suena,”
which translates as “Dream Factory” — a space that includes a picnic area
and provides academic support for children.
“Here, it’s full of people who work a lot, it’s sad to see that they
cannot have enough to eat,” said Avia, gazing out at the polluted Riachuelo
river, which borders the barrio.
Argentina — South America’s second-largest economy and a land of
contradictions with a widening gap between rich and poor — is also one of
the continent’s three countries where hunger has increased in 2018, alongside
Venezuela and Guatemala.
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ARGENTINA-ECONOMY-POVERTY 2 LAST BUENOS AIRES
A average basket of household goods costs 4,200 pesos — 57 percent higher
than in July last year, and well above wage increases.
“I don’t have dollars… but I worry because inflation has a lot to do
with the dollar,” said retired nurse Palomo Gomez.
Center-right President Mauricio Macri, in power for four years and seeking
re-election in October, had promised to reach the goal of “zero poverty”
during his term. Instead, poverty has deepened to reach 32 percent of the
population, according to official figures.
Likewise, Macri — forced to seek a $57 billion bailout from the IMF last
year — has failed to tame inflation, now running at over 50 percent, and his
government has recognized that the country’s 10 percent unemployment rate
will worsen.
– More meals –
Former health minister Daniel Gollan has highlighted one of the crisis’
most troubling statistics, five million children and adolescents plunged into
a “critical food situation.”
Trade unions and social organizations, as well as the Catholic Church and
opposition parties, have demanded the government declare a “food emergency.”
That would allow more funds to be allocated to manage an increasingly
desperate situation.
The government has refused so far. “There are situations of poverty, but
that does not mean that there is hunger,” Culture Minister Pablo Avelluto
said.
The six women who distribute food from Avia’s kitchen receive a
supplementary salary from the state, equivalent to half the minimum wage,
7,500 pesos ($110 currently). It’s hardly enough to get by.
Municipal authorities supply enough meat and vegetables every day to make
160 meals, but the women say they manage to stretch their supplies out to
feed 200.
The IMF is expected to disburse the latest tranche of the loan, $5.4
billion, this month. The favorite to win next month’s election, the leftist
candidate Alberto Fernandez, has repeatedly assured the IMF that Argentina
would meet its debt obligation, but not at the expense of the people.
Fernandez is expected to try to renegotiate the agreement after the
election, in a bid to ease debt repayments.
The vote in areas like Villa 21-24 is likely to be overwhelmingly pro-
Fernandez, as Argentina’s poor hope for some respite. For them, the priority
remains putting the next meal on table.
BSS/AFP/HR/1120