Tuesday, June 4, 2013 The Star - Senator Steps Up Calls for Retirement Systems Chief to Resign
By MARIA MIRANDA SIERRA
N
ew Progressive Party
(NPP) Rep. Ángel Rodrí-
guez called on Gov. Alejandro García Padilla on Monday
to make public the numbers related
to the Jobs Now Act, including the
actual jobs that have been created
through the initiative, the number
of energy credits granted through
May 31, and a list of the companies
that have created the jobs and received the credits.
“We are nearing 30 days before reaching the fi rst six months of
this administration, and it’s imperative to know the effects of this
faulty public policy on job creation,
if any,” Rodríguez said.
The lawmaker sent the governor a letter demanding a concise
explanation of the disbursement
of millions of dollars to businesses,
allegedly without registering onefourth of the promised jobs.
Rodríguez also asked the governor for a list of the salary scale of the alleged new jobs created
through the Jobs Now Act.
On Feb. 10, García Padilla
signed the Jobs Now Act into law,
seeking to meet his campaign promise to create 50,000 jobs within 18
months.
According to the U.S. Bureau
of Labor Statistics (BLS), since the
Popular Democratic Party (PDP)
assumed control of the government in January, some 9,000 jobs
have been lost.
“This is about simple math,”
Rodríguez added. “The governor
has to create 2,777 jobs each month to achieve creating 50,000 in 18
months. We see a lot of advertisements, a lot of propaganda, but no
one in the government has given
offi cial numbers. The only offi cial
numbers are those from the BLS
that establish that we have lost
more than 9,000 jobs since this administration came into power. There are no offi cial numbers, and that
is what we seek to amend the faults
of the law, but to be able to work
with the PDP government there
has to be the maturity to accept
that the public policy of job creation failed.”
Rodríguez recalled that at the
end of January, the governor announced that some 10,000 jobs had
been created, or 20 percent of his
goal of creating 50,000 jobs in 18
months.
“Unfortunately, that is not the
reality,” he said.
The law conceded each eligible
business an energy credit for each
job generated based on a sliding
scale up to a maximum of $2,000
that expires on June 30, 2014, he
said.
“The reality of the matter is
that the $2,000 energy credits incentives for each job created expire soon,” Rodríguez said. “What
makes this government think that
if they haven’t been able create jobs
during this most attractive phase
of the law, that they will be able to
create them later when it’s less attractive in economic terms?”
Lawmaker Demands Transparency With Jobs Now Act Figures
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