The mayor of the Buenos Aires municipality of Quilmes, Mayra Mendoza, affirmed that “she is not going to stop working” to continue “putting the neighborhoods on an equal footing by governing in another way” and pointed out that the accusation against her by federal prosecutor Ramiro González for alleged irregular handling of funds is the price she has to pay “for being different in politics”.
“If they intend for me to stop working or to stop what we are doing in Quilmes, which is transforming this district, putting neighborhoods on an equal footing by governing in another way; it is the price I have to pay for being different in politics; it is the price I have to pay because they accuse me of being something, precisely because I am not”said the mayor through a statement.
In this way, the community chief made reference to the accusation promoted by the prosecutor González last Friday against Mendoza and other officials for the alleged irregular handling of some $535 million that the Quilmes municipality paid to work cooperatives.
“I do not care how long it takes me to clarify this situation, and that no one thinks that I am not going to face my neighbors, and what I am saying here I am going to explain in each neighborhood as many times as necessary,” he remarked. Mendoza.
The case was initiated by the complaint of the lawyer Santiago Dupuy de Lomé, after a publication in the newspaper El Disenso that assured that “national funds that are delivered to the municipality of Quilmes are used to pay cooperatives” whose owners are former officials or close associates .
“If they intend for me to stop working or to stop what we are doing in Quilmes, which is transforming this district, putting neighborhoods on an equal footing by governing in another way; it is the price I have to pay for being different in politics; it is the price I have to pay because they accuse me of being something, precisely because I am not”
However, the mayor of Quilmes reaffirmed that “she is not going to stop working” and “hiring cooperatives, or social enterprises and larger companies, in case they are needed for other types of works” given that “the Organic Law of Municipalities (LOM), as well as other provincial ordinances and laws, allow it.”
“That ‘scandalous amount’, which is raised as it is raised, is not such, they are employment contracts that are almost up to the end of the year, they are work guidelines, and obviously established amounts, but they are not even paid,” Mendoza explained. .
Likewise, he emphasized that the work of the cooperatives “is visible to the neighbors” both at the entrances to the city and in the neighborhoods: “You can go to the San Sebastián neighborhood, the San Ignacio neighborhood and listen to the same neighbors say and be thankful that for the first time someone comes to these places and they have to do with these work cooperatives”.
“I denounced myself so that the neighbors of Quilmes know that I am the first one who is interested in investigating and knowing the truth and in this I trust the Justice”argued Mendoza, who instructed his legal and technical team to present himself as a municipality before the Justice.
However, the mayor stressed that she hopes that once the truth is investigated and the truth is known, “that truth will also be covered up, as last Saturday my name appeared on all the newspaper covers, most of them national, saying that I was charged in a case of corruption
“The intention is that the news has more value than the truth: even if the news is a lie and the only objective is to dirty people, it doesn’t matter, the news has more value,” he concluded.
