Prosecutor Diego Luciani's allegation: "Máximo Kirchner's participation is proven" – Up Jobs News

On the third day of the prosecution’s arguments, Diego Luciani showed new messages from the phone of former official José López and targeted the vice president’s son, Máximo Kirchner, who, the prosecutor said, “had no charge” and, however, intervened in decision-making and was consulted about what works public were to take place.

“The participation of Maximo Kirchner”, said Luciani, who among other evidence showed calls from the son of the vice president to López. “They typed each step of the public tender in Santa Cruz,” said the prosecutor.

According to the messages from López’s phone that Luciani showed, the former Secretary of Public Works – the man with the bags with millions and weapons in the convent – asked Máximo Kirchner where the works should be carried out, which would later be awarded to Báez.

“Could you speak with Maxi to define the location of the 100 blocks?” Says a message that López sent to an adviser to the vice president’s son, Matías Bezi, a leader of La Cámpora and a former YPF official. It was a tender for paving works in Río Gallegos, the city of Máximo Kirchner.

At that time, the prosecutor points out, “Máximo Kirchner had not held public office, but he was in charge of the administration of different businesses of his mother.”

“Note how Máximo Kirchner was the person in charge of defining the location of the 100 blocks that were going to be resurfaced,” Luciani stressed. The prosecutor also exhibited messages from López to Máximo himself. One of them, from July 30, 2015, said: “The Viv de El Calafate and Nov 28 are under way. On Wednesday, the two Nivello agreements are signed [Germán, que luego se convirtió en el primer exfuncionario kirchnerista en admitir el cobro de sobornos]. Travel to both places. López sent the same information to Bezi so that he could notify Máximo Kirchner.

“These messages demonstrate the coordination of the defendants, of José López, the President’s son and his adviser on tenders that were carried out in Santa Cruz until the end of the mandate,” Luciani said.

Regarding the work of the 100 blocks of paving, the prosecutor highlighted that, beyond the intervention of Máximo Kirchner, there were many other irregularities in the handling of this tender; several of them due to the urgency that was given to the procedure to get it executed before the change of government. “It was established that the order and the rush to award this tender emanated directly from the highest of the Executive Power and in this work José López and the President’s son appear as intermediaries,” said the prosecutor. And he added: “The urgency would not have made sense without an order from the highest of the Executive Branch.”

“It was 25 million dollars to make 100 blocks”Luciani told about the work in question. “Something like $250,000 a block,” he detailed.

And he reported: “The winning company was Kank y Costilla [del grupo de Báez]. From the beginning of the procedure and without justification, he was given a very fast procedure. From page one, the character of ‘urgent’ was established. It was a simulation of public bidding.”

According to the prosecutor, in this work “it was known in advance who was going to win: a Lázaro Báez company.”

“The work did not have the specific legal credit required by article 7 of Law 13,064, which establishes that no work that does not have legal credit may be called for tender,” added Luciani.

The prosecutor said that the legal advice even warned that the tender was mispublished. “However Periotti [Nelson, por entonces director de Vialidad Nacional] disregarded this.”

For Luciani, good publicity is necessary to get more bidders, promote opacity and enable citizen control. “Do you know how many sheets were offered? Two: Kank and Rib, and Stucco. Do you know how many offers were submitted? One,” he recounted.

“Such was the urgency that the tender was called without prior approval of the project,” he added, and said that it is only enabled in exceptional cases when special situations so require. In this case, according to Luciani, this did not happen. In addition, the officials had to request an “exception” from the Official Gazette to make a publication from one day to the next.

The prosecutor also exhibited messages that account for Máximo Kirchner’s knowledge of other public works in Santa Cruz and that prove his interference in decisions. “Hello, I loved the Laguna Ortiz video. How to do it I am seeing and I want to consult you, ”says López in a message to the son of the vice president.

“What did Máximo think of the works?”, says another message that José López sent to Abel Fatala, then Undersecretary of Public Works. “He fell by surprise with Matías Bezi,” replied Fatala, who tells him that he met with Máximo Kirchner and with Bezi.