A field owned by the family of the leader of Cabildo Abierto, Guido Manini Ríos, put the senator in the spotlight again for alleged irregularities detected by an inspection carried out by the agency. The legislator assures that the accusations are false and that the report was made at the request of the director of the Broad Front in Colonization, Andrés Berterreche, to harm him in the run-up to the referendum.
Manini, her partner and Minister of Housing, Irene Moreira, and her father-in-law, Roque Moreira, and4,350 hectares are exploited in Artigas and 2,856 of them are covered by Law 11,029 that created the National Colonization Institute (INC), according to an inspection carried out by the agency, and which was reported by Search this Friday the 18th.
The results of this inspection are confidential and are in the hands of the agency’s board of directors. The key, according to what the director of the INC told The Observer, It is the interpretation that is made of Law 11,029 that created the Institute, which, according to what he said, has had many changes and has even generated different legal visions.
This regulation indicates that there “affected settlers” and “qualified settlers”, those who are outside the obligations of the standard despite having purchased a field from the INC. Among other things, they are not required to reside in the countryside.
The report, in the possession of the Legal Counsel of the INC, determined that all those involved have the status of settlers, and that they break the law by not residing there or directly carrying out any production work.
The authorities of the organization decided that that report is not conclusive and that it must be legally analyzed. In the vote, which was 3 to 1, the representative of the FA was in the minority against the directors of the ruling party. consulted by The ObserverBerterreche said that the situation is clear. “I have no doubt: in padrón 511 there are a series of irregularities that must be regularized,” he explained.
The alleged irregularities of Manini
If the leader of Cabildo Abierto is subject to the obligations of the Colonization Law, the senator may have committed some irregularities. One of them ands having violated the regulations of the Senate when voting the articles of the Law of Urgent Consideration related to Colonization, since the rule establishes that the legislator cannot participate in matters in which they have interests, unless expressly authorized by the chamber.
Articles 357 and 358 of the LUC, which will be submitted to a referendum this Sunday, also enable the settler not to have to live and directly exploit the field assigned to him. If it is indeed a Colonization camp, Manini and his family would have failed to comply with the regulations for many years and, in addition, they would have voted in the Senate for legislation that favors them.
Mani’s defense
“Another lie” was the first thing Manini wrote on the same Friday when the news broke. This Sunday he issued a statement in which he makes a historical review of the property and reaffirms that neither he nor his family are settlers.
“The field to which the report refers, register 511 of the department of Artigas, was acquired by the INC in 1970,” says the statement, adding that after “a few months it was established that the field (…) was not met the necessary conditions to be colonized.
The statement assures that at that time it was also established that “the floodable area, the area occupied by the mountains and the drainage difficulties made its use by the Institute impossible” because its exploitation was “uneconomical”.
And he continued: “A few months after it was acquired, (…) it was established that the reference field did not meet the necessary conditions to be colonized (…) and that the ‘floodable area, the area occupied by the mountains, drainage difficulties made it impossible for the Institute to use it, as it was uneconomical to exploit it”.
Later, he explained that because of these reasons, the INC “decided to alienate the field” and call for bids. It was then that Moreira presented himself as one of the bidders and took over the land, according to his version, on July 5, 1971.
The next operation was four years later, when Moreira agreed to sign a new purchase-sale commitment, “which leaves no doubt about the inexistence of any link between the buyer and INC,” according to Manini.
“On December 2, 1981, after the price had been settled, the INC and Mr. Roque Moreira executed the purchase contract for the promised property for sale and the seller transferred the property to the buyer,” the message added.
Manini adds that since then there has been no claim by Colonization until now.
