(1) US Ambassador ransoms aid for passage of Public-Private Partnerships Law
...But Salvadoran social and labor movement leaders see the initiative as an effort to disguise deeply unpopular privatizations as ‘development.’ Salvadoran economist Raul Moreno describes the law as a “modality of associating pubic companies with private capital, principally foreign investments, as a new way to push this neoliberal model that in El Salvador and throughout the world has demonstrated its demise.” He considers the PPP Law a mechanism to bring profits to foreign, and principally US corporations, diverting revenue from the state into private hands at the expense of public services and public sector workers. Ambassador Aponte protests that “public-private partnerships do not imply privatizations,” but the Salvadoran labor and social movements disagree. Jose Alberto Cartagena Tobias, a leader in the Airport Workers Union (SITEAIES), fears that the law’s passage would bring union-busting, wage cuts and flexibilization to public sector jobs. “For us,” he says, “Public-private partnerships are nothing more than privatization.”Funds for infrastructure like the proposed $300 million in the FOMILENIO II project are scarce in El Salvador, where the tax system already provides generous breaks for private, and especially foreign, businesses. This is not the first time that US officials have leveraged these much needed funds for their political and economic interests. In July this year, US senators threatened FOMILENIO II funds in order to influence an internal political conflict playing out in El Salvador at the time. And the Partnership for Growth agreement has also been used by the US before in order to pressure for leadership changes in El Salvador’s Ministry of Security.Ambassador Aponte’s latest statements undermine the Salvadoran Legislative Assembly’s sovereign duty to respond to their constituents’ interests when approving legislation. The US government is effectively holding the FOMILENIO II funds ransom for the approval of a law that would allow for the investment of those funds on the US’s terms – terms that would make the global 1% wealthier at the expense of Salvadoran working families.(2) Public Private Partnership in El Salvador: Get the facts
The United States government is aggressively pushing a Public Private Partnership (P3) law in El Salvador that workers, labor experts, and economists say will bring nothing more than lay-offs, lower wages, union busting, and higher costs for public services. Unions ..[ ed notes:just citing few excerpts,click both links to read both articles...