Economist Ruddy Santana writes today of the turn about in the proposed use of sovereign bonds funds. While initially the bonds were proposed to build highways where the money would be recovered through tolls, the Senate bill passed recently authorizes the use of the funds for 100 small and medium-size projects to go up in the provinces of senators voting for the bill. The senators acted on a proposal made by Minister of Finance Fernando Alvarez Bogaert who suggested the funds be assigned to the provinces based on their number of inhabitants. The President has the last word on the use of the funds. Santana says, “This proposal has an absolute lack of economic sense, but makes lots of political sense. It is understood that the government is rushed to show the population it has done something in the past 10 months especially after the Hamilton-Hoy poll showed that almost 60% of the population reject what has been done so far,” Santana says that the only purpose of the bonds now is for the government to ensure it gets positive results in the forthcoming May 2002 congressional election.
