Agricultural producers of Villa Saralegùi, a 106,000-hectare district located 130 kilometers north of the city of Santa Fe, said enough. Fed up with the “fiscal voracity” of the community leader, Walter Sola, After receiving the road tax invoice with an increase of 430% on an annual basis, this Wednesday, in a meeting at the Rural Society of San Justo (SRSJ), they decided not to continue paying this contribution.
The conflict has been going on for a long time. Already in 2022 Sola wanted to bring the tariff of the road network from 3.6 liters of diesel per hectare and per year to 4.4 litres, to which the producers opposed, not only due to the extent of the increase but because the contribution was updated together with the fuel price and, moreover, the increase was ordered in February 2022 when the limit set for doing so was December 2021. should appear, they issued the order to a new increase in 2023 which brings the tariff to 8 litres”, counted Leonardo Gonzalez Kees, 47-year-old cabañero producer with a degree in Economics. member of a family with a long agricultural tradition at Villa Saralegui.
“If the first ballot of 2022 and the first of 2023 are compared, the increase is 430%”, observed González Kees. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back, from there they said “enough”. After ten years of managing Sola, “the roads are not doing well at all, they don’t have the expense reports they are obliged to do, the country has many health, education and safety shortcomings,” said the producer, For this reason, supports the decision of the producers”He was fed up, we said enough to fiscal voracity“.
They have currently received the first of six 2023 bills for the road fee and do not intend to pay it. They await a satisfactory answer before April, when the second one arrives. “That we are firm in not paying, we are firm“, they point out.
The meeting was attended by more than 60 agricultural producers in the area and the national deputy was also present Jose Luis Expert. “He has made a great contribution, not only as a legislator but also as an economist, he has clarified many doubts for us,” said González Kees. “Together with my team and the SantaFe producers in attendance, we signed a Request for access to public information. It’s important that these issues become visible because that’s the only way politics will be conditioned beyond just doing it Be responsible but also to give us something in exchange for what we pay”said the deputy.
At the time, they signed new bills to be sent to various estates so that they would back out of the “abusive” increase in road tax. It was also resolved to present a criminal complaint against the head of the community, Walter Sola, for embezzlement of public funds and illicit enrichment.
“We don’t know where our money goes,” González Kees said. For this reason, in 2022, together with a group of producers, they filed the complaint in Municipalities and Municipalities, they also appeared before the provincial senators Felipe Michlig and Raúl Gramajo, and in the office of the ombudsman in charge of Jorge Henn.
A municipal leader with a violent history
In October 2022, Clarín Rural published a note telling the beating that Walter Sola and his son Nicolás had inflicted on Leonardo González Kees in the Commune when the producer approached to ask for the removal of one of his gates – without warning – that the municipal boss had placed on a street. According to the cabañero, while he was asking Sola why they had done it and without any discussion, both began to beat him brutally without being able to defend themselves. “The two of them hit me, I don’t know if it was five or ten minutes, I fell to the ground, I only managed to cover my head as they kept hitting me on my back, arms, head, everywhere,” he said.
“We’ll shit you and if you upload the video, you’re a ticket“, they told him, to then throw and destroy the producer’s mobile phone in which he was recording the complaint he had gone to make.
Fortunately, a police officer who was in the commune managed to rescue him, protect him and upload it to his cell phone to get him out of the place amidst the beatings that continued even when González Kees was already in the car.
For the fact, the municipal head is reported for damages and minor injuries.
The producer indicated that “Sola is an aggressive person who already has situations of beating up other people, even some who wanted to run for community leader.” maintenance of the streets, warning that “their lifestyle and their expenses in sight, both in the city and through social networks, do not correspond to the income of a municipal president”.
Sola has presided over Villa Saralegui since 2014, was elected by the Civic and Progressive Front but then, in 2021, moved to the Frente de Todos. Since he took office, according to González Kees, he has pursued questionable policies and “great fiscal voracity”.
“It is very difficult to produce in these conditions. I am physically and morally beaten but we have to go on. It is as they say, what does not kill you, strengthens you,” the producer said after the beating last October Today, together with other producers in the area, continues to fight to prevent excessive increases in road tax and to demand the reporting of public revenues and expenditures in the municipality of Villa Saralegui.
Source: Clarin
