Argentina: Workers raise alarm over tender, possible monopoly in the port of B. Aires

Workers at the Port of Buenos Aires have denounced pressure from the government to approve the arrival of port management company PSA as the new administrator of the port by modifying the terms of a tender, which would allow all operations to be concentrated in a single company for the next 50 years.

“The port workers are in a state of alert and mobilization. The port has three of the most important operators in the world and the project defines that for the next tender there will be only one, which would generate a monopoly and leave a foreign company in control of 70% of the country’s foreign trade,” a spokesman for the workers union said.

PSA, based in Singapore, could take control of the most important commercial port in Argentina. Opponents have also denounced the plan as part of a mega real estate project called ‘Puerto Madero 2’, which has caused controversy in the context of an upcoming election campaign, involving people related to President Mauricio Macri.

“It is illogical that a single company can set the conditions for exporting and importing, that it manages the country’s trade. Legally, both Dietrich and Mórtola can launch a unilateral tender of these characteristics. What we are asking is for Congress to take up this situation and request for a report, at least to stop this operation and that it be revealed” declared Leonardo Díaz, delegate of the Union of Porters and Mobile Crane Operators of the Port of Buenos Aires Aires.