Argentina's president named on Thursday a new pro-free market economy minister to try and extricate the country from financial chaos, as consumers scrambling to survive without cash or credit cards scrounged for ways to buy food.
Roberto Lavagna, the sixth economy minister in just over a year, faces the almost Herculean task of helping President Eduardo Duhalde rescue Latin America's third-largest economy from economic chaos marked by devaluation, debt default, bloody protests, presidential resignations, and an unemployment rate of 20 percent.
The appointment of Lavagna, a relatively unknown economist and former diplomat at the European Union, came as thousands of Argentines trawled ATMs scouring for what little cash is left in struggling banks and many faced having to walk home with their pockets empty, wondering how they would eat at the weekend.
"I have 15 pesos (about $5) to last me through the end of the month because I can't get cash out of my account and they're cutting off my gas next Monday," said Maria Elena, a young court clerk, as she walked to work. "We're all trapped in the deposit freeze. We're prisoners."
While older Argentines remember hyperinflation, when there was plenty of notes and coins, albeit of little value, even they were unprepared for life without cash as the Argentine Congress passed a new law freezing bank accounts.
The appointment of Lavagna, which was announced by a senior government source who attended a cabinet meeting at which Lavagna was named, shows that Duhalde will likely continue with economic policies aimed at spending cuts and restoring investor confidence in order to win billions of dollars from the International Monetary Fund.
But Argentines, whether doctors lacking medicines or unemployed clerks taking to the streets in daily protests, are running out of patience after their savings were frozen to stop an exodus of deposits threatening to sink the banks.
"I don't know how many banks I've been to to try and get cash. This is ridiculous. I'm going to have to beg for change to get home at this rate," said exasperated office worker Marco Alvarez, wearing a jacket and and opened neck shirt in the capital's posh banking center.
Adding to the cash shortage, many shops, fearing the banks will collapse, have stopped accepting credit cards. Shopping centers have seemed like ghost towns and on the streets of Buenos Aires, taxi drivers said weekday business was as quiet as a Sunday.
Some Argentines have taken to walking to work, saving what little cash they have for food. It is all a huge trauma for a nation that was one of the richest countries in the world 70 years ago and which still has one of Latin America's largest middle classes.
On Thursday, Congress held a marathon overnight session to pass a law requiring that Argentines get approval from the Supreme Court for access to savings. It is a blow to thousands of Argentines who won lower court orders overturning a deposits freeze in December.
(China Daily April 26, 2002)
