Employees of the National Institute of Industrial Technology (INTI) will protest at the building located at General Paz 5445, rejecting this measure and ensuring that the decision taken by the National Government “will take away from users the possibility of going to a public entity to verify fines, products or services” since the lack of controls will fall on fuel pumps, scales located in businesses and ports, the radars used to issue fines for speeding, and the breathalyzers used to measure the concentration of alcohol in the blood of drivers. Likewise, its workers explained that the INTI also included, among its verifications, potable water and electricity meters, clinical thermometers, and taximeters. “The power that the INTI had, to guard the national measurement standards and thus be able to affirm that ‘a meter is a meter’, ‘a liter is a liter’ and ‘a kilogram is a kilogram’, was granted 22 years ago through a Decree of the Executive Power as an inalienable faculty due to the level of knowledge of its scientific-technical personnel and because as a public body of international reference it holds the role of an impartial third party in commercial transactions between private parties, whom I understand to be both merchants and users”, they indicated. With the Resolution carried out by the National Government, “the area of Metrology was ended” and it provides for “the total transfer of the control of measuring instruments to private laboratories and certification bodies” accredited by the Argentine Accreditation Entity (OAA), which were already performing this task, “but for whom the INTI represents its main competitor, since it is the most chosen by the companies and users that manufacture and use measuring instruments throughout the country”. According to its workers, the level of customer satisfaction with INTI services “is reflected in the number of work orders opened each year and in its billing”, two objective data that deny the supposed “delays” and the pretended “search for debureaucratization” and “elimination of obstacles to trade” expressed in the considerations of the regulation that orders the closure of the area. “It is worth mentioning that before these measures, verifying a breathalyzer at the INTI cost a municipality $140,000 and from now on it will cost $1,200,000 to verify each instrument in a private laboratory. In this context, the Institute's professionals warn of potential risks to civil security, as municipal governments might stop carrying out these controls due to being unable to afford them”, they concluded. Buenos Aires, January 28 (NA) – Workers of the National Institute of Industrial Technology called for a hug at the organization's headquarters, after the National Government announced the closure of the Directorate of Legal Metrology and the Certification Body, while warning of a possible lack of “rigor in controls” on products and services. Through Resolution 213, published in the Official Gazette on the last business day of 2025, the government of President Javier Milei ordered the disbandment of said area's directorate as of January 31, where “more than 150 technicians and professionals in charge of verifying and certifying the measuring instruments of the entire country” work. According to information obtained by the Argentine News Agency, from 10 a.m.
