Public employees: “Nicaragua has no future with Ortega”

TODAY NICARAGUA – Government supporters and opponents who work in different state agencies consider that the country’s economic situation will not improve while Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo remain in power, and they grant little chance of a peaceful handover of the presidency, at the time of an electoral defeat in 2021.

CONFIDENCIAL spoke with four professionals who work for different public entities, who shared their expectations about the political and economic situation that prevails in their work centers, as well as the vision they share with them, their coworkers who do agree with the theses of the ruling party.

No salary increase

“We talk with friends, and we see it difficult.” That is why they are looking for alternatives in which they can apply their professional knowledge, explained ‘Quino’, a middle-class professional who works in a state institution linked to health care.

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“We have all got a smaller budget, and I’m starting to have difficulties. I control my expenses well, and I always arrive with resources at the end of the month, but now I have about two or three months that it takes me to get there ”, in part because he has less and fewer savings, which were the ones that allowed him to arrive comfortably at day 30.

“The same thing happens to several of my colleagues,” he said.

‘Anonymous’ is a medical professional who works in the eastern region of the country. In 2019, his union did not have the same problems as the rest of the state workers, although the austere budget implemented in 2020 equated them all.

“Last year we had a salary increase shortly before the INSS reform was approved, but not this year. I think that raising our salary affected the basic pension that is paid to INSS pensioners, which does not seem correct to me,” he stated.

This professional considers that it is not advisable to lay off personnel to compensate for other expenses, when, with a pandemic or not, the country needs health personnel. “Firing us decreases the availability of personnel to serve people; It will make us work twice as much, and it will lower the quality of health care provided in the country ”.

With few exceptions, State workers did not receive the 5% salary increase in 2019 and 2020, and the 2021 Budget project presented to the National Assembly last week, predicts that they will not receive it in the year to come, because the current expenditure (the one that finances salaries and other administrative expenses), barely grew by 351.3 million córdobas, or 0.5%.