“I am very interested in what is discussed in this trial”, reasoned President Alberto Fernández. It is that the accusation stated that too many road works were given to Santa Cruz and the president vindicated the policy, “political decisions are not prosecutable.” “Look – added the President – today my obsession is the construction of the gas pipeline that will allow us to extract the enormous gas production that we have in Vaca Muerta and thus save millions of dollars that we spend on gas imports. And that gas pipeline will pass through small towns, out there with few inhabitants, but it is a key to development. Then, it is a political decision. The required funds are poured into the budget that is then voted on by the National Congress, where deputies and senators fight for the works for their provinces. There is no way to distribute arbitrarily, because they vote there, with each one trying to get a budget for their district. It is not a decision of the Executive Power, it is a law of Congress and at that time it was considered that Patagonia was isolated and required connecting routes and infrastructure”. At all times, Alberto Fernández made it clear that neither a president – in this case the judge is Cristina Fernández de Kirchner – nor a chief of staff direct works capriciously: “It is a myth that three people get together and decide to send funds for a route or an entrepreneur. Dozens of offices, officials, deputies, senators and governors participate in the budget and the reallocation of items “, concluded the president. The most critical moment was when prosecutor Diego Luciani insisted to Fernández about the spreadsheet that accompanied the 2006 budget and in which it appeared in line 11, one of the three thousand works of that year.
-I already explained to you that a chief of staff cannot be aware of thousands and thousands of public works. You did not listen to me, the President insisted.
“Yes, I heard it,” Luciani replied.
-“Then you have a text comprehension problem-, launched the President.
-You offend me- the prosecutor was heard saying, already annoyed.
Judge Jorge Gorini, who was in charge of the hearing, had to intervene to calm the waters. The president still told the prosecutor later that it was not his intention to offend him.
Minutes later, Fernández was annoyed again when they asked him if he met Lázaro Báez, the supposed beneficiary of Cristina. “I only saw it once. I was introduced to it,” he replied. When they asked him again if he knew that he was a businessman and if he knew Austral Construcciones, the President concluded: “If you want, I’ll tell you the dialogue. He told me, I’m Lázaro Báez, and I answered him, nice to meet you “.
Politics
The hearing followed the pattern of what has been the trial for the public works of Santa Cruz for almost three years. A permanent back and forth, with hundreds of objections to the questions and a prosecution that really questions the policies of the governments of Néstor and Cristina Kirchner. With a certain teaching patience, Alberto Fernández took the oath to tell the truth at 9:45 and could not leave Comodoro Py until almost three hours later, always with politics at the center of the scene.
These were some of his phrases:
* “Néstor, Cristina, me now, we consider that public works are essential to get out of an economic crisis. If we decide to build a thousand houses it is because that reactivates the construction industry, the ceramics industry, the metallurgical industry and much more. There are those who say that this should not be done by the state, but by private parties. But we think that it is the state that has to be present.”
* “There are no limitations or regulations for investment in public works. The criterion is necessity. There are also no limitations on distribution. These are political decisions. Last year there was an earthquake in San Juan and it was necessary to invest there. caused the pandemic, we had to take funds from different ministries and concentrate them on Health”.
* When asked by Cristina’s lawyer, Carlos Beraldi, the president replied: “There are no laws aimed at subtracting funds from the State to benefit a businessman. That’s impossible. Each legislator wants to take resources to his provinces, therefore, there he has a factual limitation. No one allows arbitrariness.”
* ”The basis is politics. When we came to government in 2003, there was enormous isolation throughout Patagonia. For example, there was no energy interconnection. Note that now we have just held a meeting of governors because the north of the country is behind. And we go towards a plan to remedy the delay. Are they going to say that we privilege the North? And yes, but it is a political decision.
Formalities
Fernandez explained again that the elaboration of a budget passes through numerous commissions and that, in addition, the deputies and senators modified the original project every year. “A president or a chief of staff are very far from each particular work. In almost all cases, what is decided is the allocation of funds, but then it is the province that bids, awards and controls. You imagine that it is impossible for me to control, today, 3,000 works that we have running and 100,000 homes that are being built. That control is not exercised by a minister. You look at the big numbers, if the execution is being fulfilled”.
“Sometimes items are reassigned -the president insisted-, but in the year that there were greater reassignments, they did not exceed three percent. And it has to do with works in which the tenders were delayed or there was some obstacle. In that case, the funds were diverted to other ministries. Or when an unforeseen need arose. At the time we had the case of the Santa Fé floods and in 2020 the pandemic. Once the game is reassigned, it is the district that executes”.
keys
The accusation comes from shipwreck to shipwreck.
*In the first place, because CFK is not even named in the trial. It happens that he did not participate in the tenders or in the adjudications or in the control of the works.
*Second, because numerous businessmen went through the trial and said that the bids in Santa Cruz were normal and they had no objections.
*Third, because it was quite clear that Lázaro Báez’s companies prevailed in those tenders because they offered lower prices, given that the Santa Cruz native had thousands of employees and machinery in Santa Cruz, while other companies had to bring their personnel and machines at 1,800 kilometers. The same phenomenon occurred in almost all the provinces, local companies winning the tenders.
*Fourth, because all the media scandal about works paid for by the state, but not built, came to nothing. It was proven false. It also turned out to be false that there were unusual delays: they were the same as in almost all the works in the country.
*The question of overpricing remains. The prosecutors affirm that there was and the defendants and their defense deny it categorically, with a clear argument in their favor: the values tendered by the Báez companies were below those of the other bidders. There will be another controversial issue: the official expert is Eloy Bona, the one who tweeted barbarities against CFK.
The trial will continue next week with the last former chief of staff, Sergio Massa. And then controversial hearings will come, with one of the key men of the macrismo in the AFIP, Jaime Mecikovsky, and the macrista inspector of National Roads, Javier Iguacel.