President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner announced a three-month extension on the Subway transfer so that the capital’s City government can implement a new security service, after the Lower House passed yesterday the subway transfer bill.
In a televised speech that surprised everybody as it was not part of the leader’s agenda, Fernández de Kirchner explained that a three-month extension will be granted to the City government led by business tycoon Mauricio Macri so his administration can set a new security service for the subway, 33 bus lines, and the Premetro and Puerto Madero trams.
“The transfer agreement along with the announcement of the withdrawal of all Federal Police security services from the urban public transport lines was signed on January 4, and back then the City government said, and it’s written on paper, they needed three or four months in order to see how to replace the outgoing security service.
Well, that puts the deadline on April or May. But as we all know, nothing has be done. So, in a show of solidarity, we have decided to grant the country’s capital city with another three months, and I’m sure that a total of six months is more than enough to solve the security matter, mostly considering that the Metropolitan Police has at least 4,000 officers among its ranks.”
Thus, and amidst the current verbal exchange between the national government and its City counterpart, the President remembered how the City “denied everything signed and played down the contract in a shameful attitude.”
Furthermore, Fernández de Kirchner urged the City administration to show “little less talk and/or press conferences and more action”, and “respect the country’s institutions.”
“The Congress passed the subway transfer bill yesterday and everybody should accept and respect the work and functioning of the national parliament.”
«The bill says that the transport transfer must include the resources to finance the service, but resources doesn’t mean subsidies», the national leader emphasized.
However, the President stressed that the national government has agreed to keep subsidying the BA City public transport for a period of 12 months with as much as 50 percent of what the original subsidies were, and remembered that the City administration has already conducted a 127 percent subway tariff hike.
buenosairesherald.com