The National Treasury Attorney reopened an administrative investigation to determine the possible existence of irregularities on the part of public administration officials who intervened in the failed debt payment agreement between Correo Argentino and the State, in the process of bankruptcy of that company of the family of former president Mauricio Macri, judicial sources reported this Monday.
The decision to reopen the administrative proceedings was made by the Treasury attorney, Carlos Zannini, who revoked “based on its illegitimacy” a resolution of the organization’s previous management of May 3, 2018, which had closed it because it was concluded that there were no irregularities attributable to any agent, according to the text to which Télam had access.
that resolution closed the investigation by concluding that there had been no irregularities attributable to any agent in the processing of that agreement, reached during the presidency of Mauricio Macri, and which was however objected by the prosecutor for the bankruptcy case, Gabriela Boquin, who described it as “ruinous” for the State.
The proposed agreement signed between Correo Argentino SA and the National StateThrough the former Ministry of Communications, it was presented in the court that is carrying out the bankruptcy process, but it did not prosper after the fiscal opinion that considered it “harmful” for the public treasury.
When the summary was opened, a “Comprehensive audit regarding the actions of the representatives of the State” in the legal case for bankruptcy, but the result of that supervision -carried out by the Treasury Attorney in 2018- was that there was “no crime”.
Now the summary was reopened after the judge in Federal Administrative Litigation Pablo Cayssialis issued a ruling in the middle of this month in which he gave rise to a lawsuit from the Office of the Administrative Investigation Attorney (PIA) against the closure of the file, for having violated his right to offer proof.
“This body agrees with what is stated in the sentence”it was explained in the Attorney General’s resolution, “in the sense that summary proceedings must preserve the guarantees of due process adjective and safeguard the search for objective legal truth”.
“The procedure that preceded the issuance of resolution 2018-40-APN-PTN (which closed the summary in 2018) is flawed, a circumstance that affects one of its essential validity requirements,” Zannini added in the reopening resolution.
The summary was opened in 2017 in the Treasury Attorney at the request of the PIA, which required that “the possible commission of irregularities in the procedure assigned to a proposed agreement between the bankrupt (Correo Argentino SA) and the National State be clarified” .
This agreement, managed during Macri’s presidential term, was rendered null and void by court order and its acceptance would have resulted in “significant damage to the interests of the State,” the PIA warned at the time, based on the opinion of prosecutor Boquin.
During the government of Cambiemos, the State accepted an offer from the Socma group (Sociedades Macri) to pay the debt for the corresponding canon in 15 installmentsbut the agreement did not prosper because the prosecutor Boquin determined that it was ruinous.
For the management of that agreement there is a criminal case that is being processed in the Federal Retirement Courts, by Judge Ariel Lijo, an aspect that was taken into account by the Attorney General.
“The existence of a pending criminal case is relevant” in which “facts are being investigated that prima facie are linked to those that should be clarified in the administrative headquarters,” said the resolution signed on March 22 last and known today.
Given this, and “without prejudice to the independence between possible disciplinary and criminal responsibilities, the existence of a criminal investigation for facts related to those that gave rise to the ordered summary” requires “acting with extreme prudence before ordering the closure of the summary actions”, it was argued in the decision of the Attorney General.
Zannini gave intervention to the National Directorates of Summaries and Administrative Investigations and Judicial Affairs of the agency.
The bankruptcy of the Macri family company has been processed since 2001 in the National Commercial Justice.
Bankruptcy was declared in the first instance, but this ruling is being appealed to the Court of Justice.
Correo Argentino SA is controlled by Socma, business group that has among its shareholders brothers and nephews of the former president.
On July 5, the commercial judge Marta Cirulli had decreed the bankruptcy of Correo Argentino SA after considering the rescue process a failure, understanding that the offer made by the postal company “only represented 100% of the debt in the eyes of the company itself”, but “it did not cover the current value of the company”.
