The Government of La Rioja decided to reintroduce the "Chachos", the Debt Cancellation Bonds (BOCADE) that had already been used by the province in 2024 and withdrawn after a resounding failure.
The new phase will begin on August 17 and involves an injection of approximately $4 billion into the local economic circuit.
The decision was made by the ultra-Kirchnerist governor Ricardo Quintela and will reach around 80 thousand people, who will receive an extraordinary amount of 50 thousand Chachos per person. The announced goal of the provincial administration is to "reinforce incomes" and "promote consumption" within La Rioja.
Ricardo Quintela and the chachos
The peculiarity of the measure lies again in the chosen instrument. Instead of providing the reinforcement exclusively in pesos, the Province will once again resort to its own bonds, which will supposedly have a nominal equivalence of one to one with the peso (although this is not the case in practice), in addition to serving to settle provincial taxes, municipal fees, and certain services from state-owned companies.
Quintela defended the return of the BOCADE despite the previous failure and stated that the mechanism had received a good reception in the province. “The Chacho is a financial instrument that had total acceptance in La Rioja,” the governor asserted.
“I do not want workers to lose their purchasing power,” Quintela stated while explaining the purpose of resorting to the Chachos again. Under this premise, the provincial government seeks to ensure that the $4 billion planned primarily ends up in "family consumption" and in the sales of local businesses and service providers.
The plan will be directed at government employees, workers linked to the Public Administration, retired police officers receiving biweekly payments, beneficiaries of programs, and contracted individuals related to the La Rioja state.
Ricardo Quintela
In parallel, the Province claims that there is already a commercial network obligated to accept the bonds, with more than 500 local businesses included in the operation.
La Rioja had first put the Chachos into circulation in 2024. The bonds were named in honor of the federal leader Ángel Vicente Peñaloza and were conceived as Debt Cancellation Bonds for the province.
Finally, the governor reiterated the justification for the failure of the first implementation. “The Chacho is a financial instrument that had total acceptance in La Rioja,” he stated, and recalled that the Province recovered the issued bonds “in the times and under the terms established by law.”
With that precedent as the main argument, the Kirchnerist administration is preparing the return of the Chachos starting on August 17.
