MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

“Congress Index” inflation in Argentina climbs 1.82% in October and 24.62% in twelve months

Opposition lawmakers making the announcement and showing the graphs

Argentine opposition lawmakers revealed on Tuesday October’s inflation index based in the analysis of nine private agencies, which showed a 1.82% increase over the previous month and 24.62% in the last twelve months.

They also presented graphics showing how the purchasing power of an Argentine 100 Pesos bill had dropped since 2007 when the official stats office from the government, Indec, until then a respected institution had its main officials removed and replaced with political cronies.

Private agencies are exposed to heavy fines from the Domestic Trade Ministry if they make public their inflation estimates so that is why they channel their information through the Lower House Freedom of Information Committee with the help of members of the opposition.

The so called “Congress Index” was presented by Ricardo Gil Lavedra and Juan Tunessi (UCR), Patricia Bullrich (Unión por Todos), Eduardo Amadeo (Federal Peronism) and Pablo Tonelli (PRO.

The head of the Radical Party at the Lower House of Congress Ricardo Gil Saavedra announced that the inflation index is three times higher than the one reported by the Indec national statistics bureau, which is expected to be released later this week.

“As every month we are presenting the average inflation from private consultants, who are impeded from making them public, and as every month we see that the government of President Cristina Fernandez insists in denying real inflation only helping to make economic problems even worse”, said Gil Saavedra.

Along with Lawmakers Patricia Bullrich and Paula Bertol, Gil Lavedra also insisted in denouncing “censorship” of the private agencies to publish their prices index.

Bullrich affirmed that “it's a worrying situation for the citizens,” and added that “during October, a month that usually has low inflation rates, it has hit 1.8% and has reached an annualized 24.62%”.

She added that the economy is not going through a good moment and this has an impact in the pockets of Argentines, “the 8N demonstration showed people in the streets expressing their disappointment among other things with inflation since we all know that the Indec numbers are fabricated and it has become an unsustainable situation”.

Lawmaker Amadeo said inflation is the most regressive and unfair of taxes, and “if we compare with a year ago inflation is up 24%, something the president refuses to acknowledge”.

Finally the graphs on the purchasing power of a 100 Argentine Pesos bill showed that starting in 2007 it has slid sustainedly and by September 2012 the real value had dropped to 61.67Pesos according to Indec stats, but for the Congressional Index, the real purchasing power was only 31.50 Pesos.