The loan request that the Municipality of Montevideo wants the Departmental Board to approve is, to be generous, not serious. If we are more sincere: this is political, economic and administrative nonsense
.Let's go in parts. While a project worth more than $1 billion is being discussed for the tunnel under 18 de Julio and other traffic works, Mayor Mario Bergara now appears with another loan: 318 million dollars
.The question is simple: why does an intendency that already has a huge budget need to borrow in this way? The answer lies in the budget itself.
Almost 48% of what enters the Quartermaster's Office goes to salaries and personal remuneration. In other words, the margin for investing with own resources is minimal.
The departmental government's solution? Don't cut, don't reform, don't review spending
.The solution is to borrow money. Inwardly, the message is very clear:
“nothing is touched here”. Spending is not adjusted. The structure is not changed. Trade union power is not being confronted. The size of the municipal apparatus is not in dispute
.You ask for a loan and that's it.
That way anyone manages.
But besides, the loan is not free. It is requested from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and it has an important characteristic: it is at a variable rate. This means that if the world enters a deeper financial crisis — something that today no one rules out — the cost of money may rise. And if it goes up, the debt goes up. In addition, there are supervisory costs, administrative expenses, audits and all the international bureaucratic machinery that makes a living from these projects
.For the IDB, the business is perfect. It's public debt. They always charge
.If the world gets complicated, the problem isn't theirs.
But the most striking thing is something else. The loan has a four-year grace period.
What does that mean?
That Bergara asks for the loan today, but it begins to be paid only in 2030, when there is already another departmental government. And then you pay for 20 years.
In other words, one government spends it and several people pay for it that we don't even know who they are going to be yet. Even generations that don't even vote today.
That's not serious.
Now, let's see what the famous 318 million are going to spend on.
According to the Intendency's own document, the distribution is as follows:
Sanitation: 32% Sidewalks
: 20%
Cleaning: 19% Streets: 16%
Old City
: 13% Inother words, less than a third goes to sanitation, which is the only clearly structural investment. The rest goes on a kind of municipal shopping list.
