Unsubstantiated proposals and figures disproved by the Government. Faced with the option of sacking state workers, the president of the ANEF, José Pérez, said, “I don’t know who will implement public policy if he sacks more than half of the public sector workers. Who is going to do the work?”
[“Clarín”. “El Siglo”. Santiago] The proposal by José Antonio Kast to cut $6 billion from public spending in just 18 months has become a veritable boomerang for his presidential candidacy. What began as an announcement of efficiency and austerity has become a vulnerable flank, fuelled by a lack of clarity from the Republican standard-bearer and his team on how such an adjustment would be applied without affecting essential social programmes.
The president of the Republican Party, Arturo Squella, attempted to clarify the formula in an interview on Canal 13. According to him, half of the adjustment (around $3 billion) would come from the dismissal of 100,000 public sector workers allegedly hired during the administration of Gabriel Boric, with an estimated average salary of 2.5 million pesos. However, the figure and the explanation not only caused alarm but were also quickly disproved by the Government.
La Moneda’s Rebuttal
The Government spokesperson, Camila Vallejo, accused the Republican campaign of spreading false figures. “The major expenditure isn’t on the odd central service official,” she maintained, “but on funding the PGU (Universal Guaranteed Pension) and primary healthcare.”
Vallejo was emphatic in stating that the 100,000 new officials never existed. She explained that part of the staff increases correspond to administrative transfers in education resulting from the reform that created the Local Education Services, which involved moving workers from municipalities to the central level, without that implying new hires.
Secondly, she added, the real increase in personnel corresponds mainly to reinforcements in the public health system: “14,337 jobs correspond to workers who have had to be hired in the public health services,” the minister detailed.
The spokesperson warned that in an electoral context, “there is an attempt to promote the idea that the Government created employees close to the President of the Republic, and that is totally and completely false.”
Meanwhile, Senator Daniel Núñez said in a post on X that “Squella falsely speaks of 100 thousand new officials and US$3 billion in savings. Reality: they are 3,912 new [central government] officials and even if he sacks all public sector workers, the ‘savings’ would not exceed US$140 million.”
The Core Problem
The debate highlighted not only an error in the Republicans’ figures but also the technical fragility of Kast’s cuts plan. Experts like the former Finance Minister, Mario Marcel, had already warned that over 85% of public spending is tied up by laws, contracts, or social rights, making it impossible to implement an adjustment of such magnitude without affecting sensitive programmes.
Even voices from the traditional right, like presidential candidate Evelyn Matthei, have pointed out that no study exists to support the feasibility of a cut of this size in such a short time.
With each rebuttal, Kast’s programme seems to sink into greater contradictions. The Republicans’ own rhetoric about “corrupt political spending” and “staff of confidence” does not hold up against the hard data showing that the new human resources have gone to hospitals and primary healthcare – sectors that could hardly withstand a cut without dramatic social consequences.
In the midst of a presidential campaign, the proposal that sought to project efficiency and fiscal rigour has ended up becoming a political boomerang, leaving Kast and his team in the uncomfortable position of promising austerity without saying who will pay the real costs.
Threat to Public Sector Workers
José Pérez, president of the National Association of Public Employees (ANEF), said on Radio Universidad de Chile that Kast’s proposal reveals “his true face” and specified that the far-right candidate “does not care about workers. He does not care that those of us who implement the public policy of the government of the day have decent work.”
Pérez indicated that Kast ought to know that “70% of state employees are on fixed-term contracts, and when they sack someone on a fixed-term contract, they have no right to redundancy pay, and when they are unemployed, they have no unemployment insurance.”
“I don’t know who will implement public policy if he sacks more than half of the public sector workers. Who is going to do the work?” stated the ANEF leader.
The MP for National Renewal (RN) and member of the Labour Commission, Ximena Ossandón, stated that “indeed, a poorly evaluated official has to go, there is no doubt about that, but what they are saying is that they will conduct an audit afterwards to see the exact number of officials who were hired. That seems unacceptable to me and is lying to the people.”
