May
Politics
Legislative Assembly approves new law (and more debt) in El Salvador
(Read the original here)
With 56 votes in favor and 26 against it, the Legislative Assembly approved the Regulation Law for isolation, quarantine, observation and surveillance due to COVID-19, as proposed by the government and, although the deputies included some changes, it still does not take into account the guidelines of the Constitutional Chamber to bring to detention centers only those suspected to have coronavirus, according to FMLN deputies and lawyers.
#AlertaCOVID19SV En la @AsambleaSV , siguen las negociaciones para aprobar los mil millones de dólares para reactivar la economía en medio de la pandemia por #coronavirus. Antes del inicio de la plenaria Kerim Bukele captado saliendo del Salón Azul del parlamento.@ElMundoSV pic.twitter.com/2U3AY2uJRI
— Oscar Machon (@OscarMachon) May 5, 2020
This is because Article 9 of the regulations empowers the authorities to place a person in breach of confinement in a controlled quarantine, even if they do not have symptoms of the disease.
“If, after evaluating the person who has been caught in breach of the household quarantine, referred to in this article, it turns out that they do not present symptoms of being a carrier of COVID-19, the medical personnel of the Ministry of Health will determine their transfer to a Containment Center, or to household quarantine, for having been exposed to contracting COVID-19”, reads article 9.
You can read how a person got the disease in a containment center, here
$1 billion loan
With 56 votes, the Legislative Assembly also authorized the Executive to contract a loan for US $1 billion, in addition to the US $2 billion that had already been approved.
According to deputy Carlos Reyes, from the Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (ARENA) party, with this injection of money “what we are doing is giving money to the Executive so that it can pay suppliers, since the government is not receiving money in taxes either.”
According to Reyes, it was a difficult decision but that his party supported because there is a commitment with the government that in 15 days will begin to enable the progressive operation of some productive sectors.
Part of the money, according to the deputies, will also be used to provide subsidies to micro, small and medium-sized company employees who have not received wages as a result of the emergency.
The FMLN party did not support the hiring of this new loan because the government has not presented a detailed report on how it will be used and they also consider that the mechanisms for grant delivery have not been effective.
Once the Executive has contracted the loan, it must request the ratification of the Assembly, which must approve it with at least 56 of the 84 votes.
