On Monday, the governor of Santa Fe, Maximiliano Pullaro, referred to the meeting held last week between provincial leaders and President Javier Milei at the Casa Rosada and the changes in the national Cabinet announced in recent hours, with Manuel Adorni as Chief of Staff and Diego Santilli as Minister of the Interior. "We view the changes with great expectation," he said, mentioning Santa Fe's willingness "to work hard in unity and move the country forward," the governor said.
Speaking to the media in Rosario, Pullaro fundamentally valued "the change in attitude of the national government after the legislative elections (on 26 October) in convening 20 jurisdictions of the Argentine Republic to discuss issues that are important for our country and that can be very beneficial for our province". In this regard, he listed projects to be debated in Congress, such as "labour reform," because "Santa Fe has around 7,000 SMEs, so we have an SME perspective on this issue, which is why the reform must help us hire more people and move people who are currently in the informal market into the formal market".
The governor of Santa Fe also mentioned tax reform, "where it is clear that the nation, the provinces and the municipalities need to lower taxes, because some are extremely regressive, such as the cheque tax or withholdings," He assured that for this to happen, "there must be economic growth based on the sustainability of services and public works in each of the jurisdictions," in response to which he reiterated the governors' complaint to the nation about the state of the national roads, which "is not good."
Nation debt to Santa Fe
On the other hand, Pullaro was asked about the national government's debt to the province of Santa Fe and stated that "they owe us a lot of resources," but he recalled that "it is not Javier Milei's government that owes us, but previous governments, which is why there is a lawsuit before the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation from 2023 for the national government to pay the debt it owes to Santa Fe."
On this point, the governor pointed out that "the reality of Santa Fe is different from that of other provinces" because "in other provinces there are shared debts, as the provinces owe them something and the national government owes them something". However, "in our case, the national government owes us the debt stock of the Pension Fund, which we estimate at more than one and a half trillion pesos or two trillion," and he compared it to "the same amount that we are going to invest in public works within the 2026 budget."
In addition, the national government owes Santa Fe "the flow of the Pension Fund, which are resources that the national government would have to give us every month based on the taxes that were transferred in different fiscal pacts," Pullaro went on to list, acknowledging that this situation "causes significant damage to the province because it is more than 10 billion pesos," added to the "balance of the fiscal pact, since when Santa Fe's gross income fell in 2017, there was a balance in the fiscal pact that had to be settled by the national government."
"We understand that fiscal balance is essential and we support it, but we always demand with great prudence and strength the resources that belong to the province," he concluded.
