A responsibility not shared

The new public security plan (part I)

Possible impact of the government’s economic measures

Journalistic ethics: losing the war

News briefs

A RESPONSIBILITY NOT SHARED

"A shared responsibility" is the subtitle of President Flores’ proposal for the reactivation of the economy. The content of the responsibility is clear: what is referred to is establishing a dynamic process in the agricultural sector and lowering the fiscal deficit. On another point, what will be shared is not so clear. The proposal does not allow for an affirmation that all who make up the society and the state are going to share the responsibility for the reactivation equally because some will have to assume more responsibility than others.

When 13% of the value added tax is applied to basic grains, vegetables, fruit, milk products and medicine so that the consumer absorbs payment of the tax, the price of all of these products will increase. And it will not increase only by 13% because the majority of the population cannot even buy the entire basic food basket; it will increase in a higher amount than the Flores Administration has announced. Although this situation affects all consumers equally, independently of their income, the burden will be greater on those who receive less and on those who do not have a permanent job. Apart from this, small agricultural producers will hardly benefit from this measure because they are in the hands of intermediaries. The responsibility, then, is not shared equally by all. For the majority of the population, the burden of survival will become heavier, while for a privileged minority, the increase in prices will hardly affect them.

Flores’ ministers hurry to assure us that the products included in the measure will not necessarily increase in prices, but, in fact, they have already increased in priced at the market level although the law which would authorize such an increase has not yet been approved. But the ministers declare that they are ready to control price speculation. The reality is, however, that they do not have the means to impede an increase in prices nor further price speculation. They breathe a sigh of relief in the case of medicine, given the fact that this sector has promised not to increase prices, at least this year. They confide in the good will of the producers and distributors who promise to sacrifice themselves for the well-being of the population. The big businessmen have joined the chorus, urging all businessmen not to increase prices. As if the market operated on the basis of appeals to good will. As operative costs increase, the price to the consumer is increased.

The most surprising of all this is that none of the presidential ministers are saying that they know what will be the impact of the increase of prices in the basic food basket and on the family budget will be —that is, they either do not know or do not dare to say. Cynics argue that the family budget will feel a slight increase during the first month, but that, after that, the level of spending will stay the same. What they do not say —and here their cynicism enters into the picture— is that that spending will increase but that income will not. For the greater part of the population, basic food and medicine costs will increase, so that they will have to sacrifice other expenses or eat less and take less care of themselves.

The measures focussed on reducing the fiscal deficit, which come close to a dangerous 3% of the Gross National Product, are the result of the fast and loose way in which the second ARENA government handled the public treasury. Calderón Sol collected less than was projected and spent a great deal more than he should have —an especially heterodox measure for a neoliberal politician. The Treasury Minister does not know how to explain the lack of equilibrium in a coherent way, although it ought to know how, given that he was vice-minister of the last governmental administration. The decisions announced have two guidelines: austerity in government —in an area in which the legislative opposition insisted in discussing the budget— and an increase in the collection of taxes, increasing the tax base starting with the smallest businessman, and eliminating some legal vacuums which favor tax evasion. If the Flores government is diligent, it is probable that it will succeed in lowering the fiscal deficit. Nevertheless, the impact of all of these measures will be much reduced when compared with the real dimensions of the problem.

These fiscal measures will, in the first place, affect the smallest and weakest businesses. The medium-sized and big businesses will not be affected. This is to say that the responsibility will fall upon the first but not upon the second. This is the explanation for why the representatives of the business associations of big private business have approved these measures with such enthusiasm. If the responsibility were really shared, their attitude would be very different. The Mayor of San Salvador attempted to adjust the tax base in accordance with the criterion of shared responsibility, but those who now show themselves to be so satisfied with Flores, blocked the measure by applying pressure and using specious arguments.

President Flores’ announcements cannot be considered a plan for the reactivation of the economy. They can only be considered to be two kinds of measures oriented towards confronting two very specific problems. The measures point in the right direction, but are only short range measures and, in this sense, place in doubt his capacity to confront what is shaping up to be a big national economic problem: the slow growth of the economy, for optimists, or the beginning of a recession for pessimists. Again, the Flores administration falls short. What is not being referred to are the high interest rates, nor is the reference to the reactivation of other sectors (industry, commerce, construction, foreign trade and small and medium enterprise); nor is the reference to the future of currency. Neither did he share his diagnosis of the economy as he promised to do. Although more measures have been announced, what has been said up to now is insufficient.

The good will involved in the measures, adequate in and of themselves, are a medium and long range promise. The reactivation of agriculture will not be automatic and therefore neither will its capacity to create jobs be automatic. The construction of the highway infrastructure is also not a short range project. While these goods arrive, the weakest and most vulnerable sectors will have to carry the greatest burden resulting from the changes. Those who promote these measures assure us that the sacrifice is worth the trouble because there will be more investment, more jobs, more income, more taxes collected and more state investment in social programs. While we are waiting for all of this to take place, the poorest families will have to continue making unilateral sacrifices. In these conditions, the sharing of responsibilities is a mere illusion.

THE NEW PUBLIC SECURITY PLAN (PART I)

On June 3, President Flores and the Director of the national Civilian Police (PNC), Mauricio Sandoval, presented the security plan with which the new government aims to confront the crime wave. This plan began to go into effect immediately after its presentation. Now, almost a month after its having been inaugurated, it continues to be a source of controversy. And that’s not the least of it. Crime is one of the two most serious problems in the country. It is obvious that if Francisco Flores is interested in becoming part of Salvadoran history as a good president, he is obliged to achieve a notable decrease in the levels of delinquency.

So it is, then, with the security measures now being implemented. It is not only a situation in which Flores is using the administrative capacity which everyone attributes to him, but that —and more importantly— the country is judging, once again, the possibility of exercising greater control over criminals. From this it follows that the security plan presented by Flores is polemical. On the one hand, political opposition, diverse sectors of civil society and even certain figures in the Catholic church have made observations about the proposal. On the other hand, personalities such as the president of the Supreme Court, Eduardo Tenorio and the Archbishop of San Salvador, Fernando Saenz Lacalle, supported it.

The first declared themselves against the confinement of the police to barracks and argued that many of the measures presented in the plan had already been created during the previous administration and doomed the project to failure while the greater part of the country continues in misery. The second group declared themselves to be satisfied with the proposal and applauded the fact that it had been generated in a favorable climate for interinstitutional coordination. So now, what can be said about the formulation of the project itself? How good have the results been during the first weeks of its implementation? These are the two aspects which we will evaluate below.

The following factors have been noted as the components of this "Model": a strategic plan, the assignment of a specific role for each institution, the encouragement of an effective interinstitutional coordination and the encouragement of citizen participation. The strategic plan presents, at the same time, seven central points: social prevention, citizen participation, police efficiency, fiscal efficiency, judicial efficiency, social rehabilitation and international cooperation. Among these central points we consider prevention and police efficiency to be the most important. With respect to the first, the following points or objectives are mentioned, without being developed: social prevention, elimination of the causes, dissuasion and the need for effective political education tending to homogenize the values and norms of conduct among the population. With relation to the second, the following objectives are posed: formation, discipline, re-engineering and community policy.

It is with reference to social prevention that the Plan appears to demonstrate the greatest weakness. The assumption of the elimination of the causes of delinquency is mentioned. What is not detailed is the way in which this elimination will be carried out. To begin with, it remains to be seen what the new functionaries understand by the term the "causes" of crime. In the second place, it remains to be corroborated that what they identify effectively might be effectively adapted to the reality of the country. And, lastly, the measures to be taken must be examined in order to learn if those are the most adequate for eliminating those causes.

As none of this appears in the New Model of Public Security, there is nothing left but to repeat the obvious: that the elimination or, at least, combating, of the causes of crime must necessarily begin with combating poverty. And this is not so because the poor are the only criminals, but because they are the most marginalized and vulnerable for the creation of criminal focuses as well as those who suffer from them. To speak of the "elimination of causes" of crime is rhetoric as long as there is no real willingness to diminish poverty. It is for this reason that this new security plan cannot be so easily considered "complete" —as Saenz Lacalle evaluated it— nor can greater expectations be deposited in it, at least as the eradication of the causes of delinquency are concerned.

It might be argued —in speaking against this analysis— that to fight poverty is not the specific province of the institutions charged with public security. This is true, but does not suffice to resolve the problem. First of all because the proposal in question does not arise from the institutions, but is a mandate of the president of the Republic and secondly because the very proposal recognizes the relevancy of the "elimination of causes" under the plan. Of course, poverty would have nothing to do with security if it were not one of the principle causes of crime.

A security plan designed effectively to diminish the levels of crime cannot evade the problem of the precariousness in which the greater part of Salvadorans live—and Mauricio Sandoval made public the challenge of diminish it by 60%, while the Minister of Security, Francisco Bertrand Galindo promised to resign if the results were not achieved. Monsignor Rosa Chavez is not mistaken when, as he insists on the importance of making El Salvador a peaceful country, points out: "that will be possible when people are at peace and if their stomachs are empty, people are not going to be at peace".

On the other hand, the plan, it should be mentioned, offers a perspective on "police efficiency". In this section, in addition to specifying the role of the Director of the police, it poses a series of "immediate actions" designed to provide an urgent response to the crime wave. There are various interesting measures, the implementation of which we will analyze in more depth in the next issue, but suffice it to say that nowhere does the plan mention the serious problem of corruption inside the National Civilian Police, nor does it propose measures for confronting this phenomenon. On numerous occasions, evidence of corrupt and irregular behavior and practice by police and high level officials of the PNC has been made public.

However, Flores —as his predecessor Calderón Sol— has ignored this matter. It may not be out of line to suppose that this vacuum should be in some way related to what was identified in the proposal concerning public security in the Government Plan of the new president (see Proceso, 842). It appears that, for Flores, either corruption does not exist or it is not a sufficiently serious problem which merits consideration in his policies.

This evasion of the problem of corruption appears to focus, moreover, on the desire not to put the ARENA party members up against the wall should they turn out to be implicated when serious anti-corruption measures are taken. What is certain is that as long as this administration does not begin to take the fight against corruption into consideration as a problem which perforce must be dealt with, impunity will not only continue to exist and corruption will continue to obstruct "police efficiency" but will continue to be one of the causes of criminal behavior, something which the "model" itself purports to eliminate.

POSSIBLE IMPACT OF THE GOVERNMENT’S ECONOMIC MEASURES

On June 25, President Flores made public the first measures for reaching the objectives of economic reactivation of the agricultural and livestock sector and correction of the deficit in public finances. This announcement took place in the context of repeated petitions from the business sector to adopt emergency measures which would turn back the tendency towards the reduction of economic growth observed during the last three years. From the beginning, the initiative has enjoyed the support of the majority of the of business associations.

Although a diagnosis of the economic situation had been presented, the President limited himself to presenting a program by means of which he aimed to improve economic expectations and which, with regard to the agricultural and livestock sector, contemplates five principal measures: the application of the value added tax to basic grains, milk, vegetables, fruits and medicines; the reorientation of credits extended by the Banco de Fomento Agropecuario (BFA); and the reorientation and broadening of agricultural and livestock production; an increase in public investment (restoration and construction of roads); and an increase in patrols of rural areas affected by crime and delinquency.

In order to correct the imbalances in public finances, the President also proposed various measures, among them are: reduction in public spending (suspension of trips, a freeze on employment and purchases of vehicles, gasoline rationing); the creation of a tax code or table; the simplification of the Value Added Tax (IVA) for the informal sector; the elimination of the tax base limit of 75,000 colones for the payment of taxes and, finally, the struggle against contraband.

The most concrete measure and the measure with the greatest immediate inflationary impact is the exemption from the payment of the Value Added Tax for food and medicine. In fact, almost since the first day of the presidential announcement, the principal business associations called upon the sector not to increase prices as a result of the announced exemption from the Value Added Tax for agricultural and livestock products. Supposing that this were approved by the Legislative Assembly, the logical effect which might be expected is an increase in the prices to the consumer as well as wholesale prices of agricultural and livestock products and medicines. Paradoxically, this does not necessarily imply that price increases will be felt by small producer-consumer of basic grains.

Those receiving the most benefits from this measure are the agricultural and livestock producers registered as tax-payers of the Value Added Tax, which are those who will increase their prices in order to pass the cost of the Value Added Tax to the consumer. Close to 500,000 peasant families who produce for their own consumption will not see the benefits of the taxing of agricultural and livestock products. First of all, because they are not registered as tax-payers of the Value Added Tax, and , secondly, because the products which they sell are through intermediaries who take most of the profits of the production and sale of agricultural and livestock products.

Those receiving the most benefits from the exemption of IVA will be the medium and large scale businessmen registered as tax-payers, who can include in the prices an additional percentage which might make possible an increase as a result of time-hardened custom, among those engaged in business enterprises, of price speculation. In fact, the government has also anticipated the possible speculative increases in prices by announcing plans to fight against them, although, in practice, this will have no effect.

The reorientation of the BFA and the broadening of the agriculture and livestock sector, on the other hand, do not go beyond mere offers which still require greater detail in their elaboration in order to specify strategies and actions which give them viability. The increase in public investment does promise to provide investment and infrastructure to areas which have traditionally not been included in the big investment plans, but, again, it still remains to be seen what the specific investment plan will be (what areas are to be included, amounts of investment, kinds of infrastructure to be developed, etc.). Finally, it is important to point out that the anti-crime patrols, although necessary, do not guarantee, in and of themselves, improvements in the growth rates of agriculture.

In what concerns public finances, what is most notable is the contradiction between the apparent policy of austerity and the offers to increase investment in rural infrastructure and improve access by small rural producers to small credits. Both measures require important infusions of financial resources which inevitably will place greater pressures on already battered public finances.

Additionally, two of the measures announced threaten to reduce the available income of the lowest income sectors, to wit: the incorporation of the informal sector into payment of the Value Added Tax and the elimination of the baseline for exemption ,now at 75,000, for the payment of taxes. The adoption of these policies would imply that the prices of the products offered by the informal sector —normally asked by low income sectors— will suffer increases and, moreover, that the sectors located in the lower income range —that is to say the majority of the population— will have to use a greater part of their income to pay taxes.

In summary, the first economic measures proposed by the government present a clearly inflationary character because they would tax food and the sales of the informal sector and have as their principal beneficiaries the medium and large agricultural and livestock businessmen registered as tax-payers of the Value Added Tax. On the other hand, the urban population will have to carry the costs of the higher prices of the food and medicine products without this necessarily translating into an improvement in income for the rural poor.

Initially the proposal to improve the income of the agricultural and livestock producer by permitting them to discount the Value Added Tax from their costs appears to be a good one, but in the current context of possible positive effects their costs are not justified. The increase in the price of food does not justify the fact that a few agriculture impresarios obtain greater income. The real problem in agriculture is the extension of the peasant economy and rural poverty, which is not solved by the incorporation of the Value Added Tax into the sector where the majority of the producers are not even registered as tax-payers.

The foregoing does not obviate the fact that some of the measures contained in the program are pertinent, but greater specificity in the area of small credit, crop insurance, rural science and technology and the broadening of the agricultural and livestock sector might still be required. On another point, in the fiscal scenario it is clear that it is necessary to evaluate the results of the ARENA tax reform and propose fiscal more aggressive fiscal measures. It is especially necessary to adopt a strategy which increases public income without allowing the major part of the burden to fall on the shoulders of those with the lowest incomes. Lamentably, this is not the vision which is reflected in the recently examined tax policy.

The government’s economic program is partial because it does not arise from a broader diagnosis of the economic situation and because it focuses on fiscal deficit and the crisis in agriculture when in reality we are facing a generalized reduction in economic growth accompanied by growing deficits in the trade balance and greater competition from low-priced imported products.

Doubtless there are many aspects which have not received sufficient attention in the plan (rates of interest, minimal salaries, industrial reconversion, encouragement of exports, lowering of customs barriers, etc.) but, in general, it can be said that a crucial problem which ought to be resolved in the short run is the lack of capacity in public finances to finance initiatives such as small credits in the rural areas, the broadening of agricultural and livestock production, investment in the infrastructure and an increase in social spending, among others.

JOURNALISTIC ETHICS: LOSING THE WAR

Proclaiming the right to information, in the recent months communications media encountered a dead end in the all-out struggle with the various Legislative Assembly commissions. Day after day the print media dedicated pages and editorials to denouncing the obstacles in the new Assembly building which impede journalistic coverage of the negotiations and agreements taking place in the commissions. Finally, the scale has tipped in their favor: the barrier which separated the legislators disappeared and the commissions began to discuss their concerns with the microphone open.

With the escape of "El Directo" the media found a new opportunity to present themselves as defenders of the public interest and the right to information. This time, fighting against the judge who brought the case and the penal norms referring to minor lawbreakers, the media decided, unanimously, to publish the name and the photo of the "most wanted" person in the country. The face of Gustavo Parada was published fully on the front pages of the newspapers. Violating the law and writing sensational news reports, the media thought to win one more battle against the institutional factors which stood in the way of the public being informed about the national situation.

Both battles were presented by the generals of the news media as part of the daily war they wage as intermediaries between public opinion and state entities. As unarguable advances in the consolidation of a journalism which seeks the truth, questions power and offers true information and criticisms of the way things are handled at high governmental levels —in short, a journalism which owes the people the right to be duly informed and respect for the fundamental demands of the right to free expression. So it is that journalism faced these situations in its search for what "ought to be", as a distancing of itself from the ills which characterize the Salvadoran media.

So now, who is winning the war? An even more important question is, is there really a struggle for the right to information and the freedom of expression? One way of answering this question, in a minimal way, is to take up some of the articles from the Ethics Code for the Press in El Salvador (a document presented this month by APES for discussion in the media sector) in order to analyze the polemic raised around the order to censure songs by a national group and various foreign groups.

The document referred to which seeks "to contribute to professionalism and strengthen democracy" declares that "the journalist ought to guarantee the right to information, free expression and criticism as fundamental liberties of every human being" (Art.2). To achieve this, "all means should be used to prevent the passing of laws or other similar measures which annul or make difficult the exercise of the freedom of expression"(Art. 42). Some fundamental conditions which ought to obtain so that this can be carried out are: (a) that "the professional journalist ought not to accept for himself, nor in the name of others, responsibilities incompatible with the integrity and dignity of the profession. Neither should they accept undue benefits from private persons or groups when these directly or indirectly implicate them in compromising their independence or objectivity in journalistic work" (Art.14); y (b)"journalistic work should not be performed simultaneously with other professional activities incompatible with the duty or moral obligation to provide information, as publicity, public relations, propaganda, consultant ships on image, be these from public institutions or entities or private entities " (Art.40).

The polemic surrounding this question arose when the Director’s Office for Public Spectacles and the Ministry of the Interior "requested" that the radios cease the programming of a song concerning "El Directo", suing the argument that it subverted "order, morality and good customs". The same fate awaited the compositions of two foreign groups which were characterized by the strong political content of their lyrics. For our purposes, it might be of interest to analyze, on the one hand, the response of the Salvadoran Association of Radio Announcers (ASDER) when faced with censorship and, on the other, the posture adopted by the rest of the media —especially the print media— with regard to this matter.

The argument with which the President of ASDER responded to the "petition" of the Ministry of the Interior could not be more specious and deformed: in order to safeguard the right of free expression and avoid the censorship, the radios will opt for self-regulation. The self-regulation, for Tony Saca, will permit the radio media to maintain the freedom of programming without the danger that entities foreign to their functioning might have to take up the embarrassing necessity to order censorship. So it is, then, using this argument, the ethical problem of the question would be resolved, accepting the following: (a) that the criteria for ordering censorship be valid and reasonable; (b) that the criteria for self-regulation coincide with external criteria for censorship; and (c) that freedom of expression may be abrogated only if the product which the media offers to public opinion is censored by an external entity, not in cases where censorship is applied on the basis of criteria applied in the process of selection of material interior to the radio’s functioning.

Evidently, to act more in the manner of King Solomon, the policy which ASDER will use from now on is that of total obedience to the dictates of one of the most conservative government entities. The solution opted for goes more in the direction of cloning criteria for censorship than towards dialogue and discussion of what can and ought to be offered to public opinion. The dichotomy between freedom of expression and censorship —represented respectively in this case by the kind of programming offered by the radios and the criteria of the Ministry of the Interior—, is solved by creating small entities on Public Spectacles in each of the media units.

The journalistic coverage which has been given to the question supports, in its scarcity, the understanding between ASDER and the Ministry of the Interior and sows serious doubts about his commitment to the right to freedom of expression, freedom of information and his lack of interest in compliance with state and private interests. High-level journalistic coverage which responds to the Code of Ethics currently under discussion, would have had to indicate, in the first place, that very possibly ASDER’s decision was taken more with an eye to make "morality and good behavior" prevail than the political interests of its president (is it possible that the press can not have been aware of the fact that Tony Saca is a strong contender for participation in the upcoming municipal elections as a candidate for ARENA? If the media is aware, how is it that it did not question the fact that he was perhaps not the person indicated to take responsibility for a determination on this question?).

In second place, that ASDER, given that ASDER contains not only groupings of radios with musical programming but also some with journalistic objectives (such as Radio KL and Radio Sonora, for example), it ought to be decidedly opposed to a measure which would contravene the right of citizens freely to express their ideas because, the contrary would mean going against the most elemental principles of journalistic ethics. Finally, press coverage ought to be centered on what is fundamental to the question: the range and limits of freedom of expression in the country and not if the lyrics of songs are offensive or not to "good customs" (something which, for all the rest, is diffuse and entirely open to discussion, principally when faced with the ruling conservatism and the permanent diffusion of news, television programs and songs, the nature of which are no less questionable).

Finally, the situation may be said to be less that encouraging. The war which the leaders of the print media are waging to occupy the position which corresponds to them in society and to engage in journalistic work which is minimally ethical is more a game of mirrors and images —a game, the intensity of which depends on the interests in question. On this occasion, given that it is ASDER and the Ministry of the Interior at the center of the battle, it was predictable that freedom of expression would be the big loser.

THE FMLN. The FMLN, on June 28, withdrew its support for the motion to apply the Value Added Tax to agricultural and livestock products. It even declared that, as the measure was framed, it would not vote for the economic measures of Francisco Flores. Deputy Oscar Ortiz stated that "we will not support any measure which harms the Salvadoran pocketbook". He added that the Flores Executive Plan will not lift the agricultural and livestock sector out of its crisis, nor will it do so for the very small and small businesses. The position of the FMLN changed only two days after the very same Ortiz himself stated publicly that his party supported the application of the Value Added Tax to the aforementioned products, because it was considered to be "a necessity". At that point in time they spoke of supporting it and suggested parallel measures: "[the Value Added Tax] is an element which must be accompanied by a series of credit measures aimed at encouraging economic development by means of credits with interest rates less than 10% thorough the Banco de Fomento Agropecuario and the Banco Hipotecario". Nevertheless, with the change of opinion, Shafick Handal, the head of the FMLN faction, argued that a reduction in the Value Added Tax was one of the electoral promises of the FMLN. "Our former promise to reduce IVA [Value Added Tax] once again takes on importance...we are reiterating our proposal...", Handal stated (La Prensa Gráfica, June 29, p. 14).

PRICES. The Ombudsman for the Defense of Human Rights (PDDH) will call upon Francisco Flores to offer a detailed explanation of the economic plan announced on June 25. The head of the Ombudsman’s office, Eduardo Peñate, stated that the economic package does not include a plan to avoid the sudden acceleration of process of the basic food basket. Moreover, he expressed fear that the Government does not have the capacity to control market forestalling of basic grains. The Human Rights institution aims that Flores and the rest of the functionaries involved in the drawing up of the plan that has as one of its objectives to apply the Value Added Tax to basic grains, would present a report to the institution. "We do not wish to oppose the plan simply to oppose it, but I believe that the control of prices and the market forestallers is not addressed", stated Peñate. The National Association for Private Enterprise (ANEP) reiterated its support for the governmental measure to apply the Value Added Tax to agricultural and livestock products. Concerning the possibility that price speculation could be a factor, as some analysts, small businesspeople and consumers have indicated, the president of ANEP, Ricardo Simán, stated that it will be the market which will take charge of the regulation of this aspect and indicated that it is something which should not concern us overly much (La Prensa Gráfica, June 27, p. 5 and June 28, p. 8).

THE ECONOMY. Francisco Flores, on June 26, presented proposals to activate the economy, among which takes precedence, the broadening of the limits on the tax base for paying taxes and the freezing of government jobs. Outstanding among all of the proposals is the elimination of the exemptions for the payment of the Value Added Tax on basic grains, vegetables, fruits in their natural state, milk products and medicines. This implies that the producers of these goods could discount the Value Added Tax from their costs, opening up the possibility of passing the payment of the tax onto the consumer. The Minister of the Treasury, José Luis Trigueros, admitted that what is expected is a certain increase in the price of these products, which would oscillate between 1% and 10%, depending on the product in question. Flores indicated that he would immediately send a bill to the Legislative Assembly to change the law governing the Value Added Tax and include payment of this tax on agricultural products and medicines. The rest of the measures are complemented by actions in support of the agricultural and livestock sector. These actions are related to measures to reinforce security in rural areas, improve the highway system and open up financing for small agricultural workers. Flores announced that the program "Rural Roads to Progress" would be begun, and with it a lowering of the costs of agricultural production and commercialization of agricultural and livestock products is hoped for (La Prensa Gráfica, June 26, p. 4).