On Monday, the centre-right government of Argentine President Mauricio Macri will put a new cap on increases natural gas prices. Argentina’s Supreme Court demanded the government justify within 10 days the “social and economic aspects” of the 400 percent increase in gas bills. The federal court in La Plata solicited the country’s highest court which, on Tuesday, decided to suspend all bill increases. The court in La Plata said that the government failed to implement the mandatory public audits before imposing the price hike in April.

As part of Macri’s neoliberal policies, the President had cut generous energy subsidies and raised utility rates in January shortly taking office. This resulted in gas bills jumping more than 1 000 percent in some places and amid public outrage and legal challenges the government was forced to water down its plans – the President himself said later on that the decision “still pains me.”

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“Devaluation and price adjustment creates poverty" said Agustín Salvia, the director of UCA’s Social Debt Observatory, adding that 1.4 million people had fallen into poverty over the previous three months as a result of this. A report was published 4 months ago by the researchers from the Social Debt Observatory at the Catholic University of Argentina (UCA) which stated that nearly 33 percent of Argentines now live in poverty, with those families unable to afford a basket of food and other basic goods, up from 29 percent at the end of 2015 when Macri was elected.

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