Page 18 - MONTT LATIN AMERICAN MAGAZINE, AUGUST 2021 (English)

Bolivia: Law for the Refund of Contributions to the AFPs is Approved
Due to the di icult economic situation in the country, Congress authorized a withdrawal of pension funds under certain circumstances. In addition, Parliament approved tax incentives to improve the economy and a new headquarters for Congress was inaugurated.
The Plurinational Legislative Assembly has already sent the Executive the bill that will allow the return, under di erent modalities, of the contributions that workers made to the Pension Fund Administrators (AFP). Now only its enactment remains.
This is a measure that serves, above all, for emergencies, given the conditions of acute crisis in which several sectors of the population are disadvantaged by the loss of jobs and income due to the pandemic. The rule only bene ts the unemployed and establishes a one-time refund of up to 15,000 Bolivians to those who have an amount equal to, less than or greater than Bs 100,000 in their personal savings account, regardless of their age. On the other hand, those who have balances in their accounts equal to or less than Bs 10,000 and are 50 years old or older will receive a total refund of their contributions.
With this law, those who have jobs or who have accessed an old-age pension, old- age solidarity pension, disability payment or bene t of the Comprehensive Pension System will not be able to bene t.
So far, the initiative to return part of the contributions to people who are in distressing conditions due to the lack of income and, even more so when the pension system in the country, for the management of the money resulting from the contributions to the AFPs, has undergone changes throughout its history in the country.
On the other hand, the Chamber of Deputies approved in general and in detail the treatment of bill No238 / 2020-2021, Tax Incentives for the Import and Marketing of
Capital Goods for the Economic Reactivation and Promotion of the Policy of Import substitution. The Minister of Economy and Public Finance, Marcelo Montenegro, explained that the regulations reduce to 0 percent the percentage of the Value Added Tax (VAT) for the import of capital goods, industrial plants, machinery and equipment for mining, hydrocarbons, agricultural.
New Seat of Parliament
Likewise, the Government of Luis Arce inaugurated the new headquarters of the Bolivian plurinational Parliament. The building is resistant to earthquakes, has a helipad and accessibility ramps; it has 25 oors and an area of 41,000 square meters and a new hemicycle that is the second in size in South America, after Brazil. It has symbols that represent the 36 indigenous peoples recognized in the 2009 Constitution, which declared the Plurinational State and created the current Parliament, the Plurinational Legislative Assembly.
For the Bolivian Government, it represents the symbol of a new political stage that also extends outside of Bolivia, with Runasur, the project of former President Evo Morales that promotes an area of regional integration that brings together indigenous peoples and social organizations and that would be equivalent to a “Unasur of the peoples”. Morales’ initiative was recently launched. The name, in addition to referring to Unasur, is due to the Quechua word “rune”, which means “human being”. Last week Morales presented the great principles and objectives of this organization, among them
“the integration of peoples, decolonization and de-patriarchalization.”
Runasur promotes a plural economic and social model that recovers the millennial principles of life, according to the document presented by Morales, which expresses the rejection of “the actions of imperialism and capitalism that impose economic sanctions, organize coups d’état and promote the fascism and racism that threaten the sovereignty of the peoples (...) Plurinational America is not compatible with capitalism, imperialism ”.
He also repudiates consumerism and calls for the “re-founding” of states in such a way that what is paramount is not capital but human beings and nature. “Runasur has a goal, to unite social movements - be they indigenous, workers, middle class and teachers - with intellectual professionals, and the goal is to ght for a true liberation of all plurinational America, from the peoples to the peoples.
MAS Congress
The principles of Runasur include the “self-determination of the peoples”, and the consolidation of “the anti-imperialist struggle” and “against all forms of interventionism and interference”. At the congress in favour of the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS), held in early August, Morales warned of a threat from abroad: like the Bolivian right, the United States “does not want the MAS to follow (...) the right in 2019 was to kill the Movement towards Socialism [...] but we are alive ”.
p18 Montt Latin American Magazine