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The Government will denounce Victoria Tolosa Paz for irregularities in the purchase of Yerba for $18 billion - Infobae
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El Gobierno denunciará a Victoria Tolosa Paz por irregularidades en la compra de yerba por $18 mil millones
Fue por la adquisición de 17,4 mil toneladas de “yerba mate elaborada con palo”. También se detectó “sobreprecios” y, entre otros cuestionamientos, “mala calidad del producto”. Parte de esa mercadería aún no fue repartida y permanece en dos depósitos del Estado
www.infobae.com
May 31, 2024
It was due to the acquisition of 17.4 thousand tons of “yerba mate made with stick.” “Overprices” and, among other questions, “poor product quality” were also detected. Part of that merchandise has not yet been distributed and remains in two State warehouses.
By Andres Klipphan
The former Minister of Social Development, Victoria Tolosa Paz (Adrián Escandar)
The Government will denounce before the Federal Justice the tender that the former Minister of Social Development, Victoria Tolosa Paz , signed on November 7, 2023, for $18,224,700,000 , for the award of 17.4 thousand tons of “yerba mate made with stick” . The legal undersecretary of the Ministry of Human Capital found alleged “ irregularities in Public Tender No. 95-0058-LPU23 ,” “ overpricing ” and, among other questions, “ poor quality of the product ” purchased. In the State warehouses, located in the Buenos Aires suburbs and Tucumán, there are pallets with more than three thousand tons that were not distributed. They are exactly 3,049,479 kilos .
The “offer evaluation opinion” was on September 18, 2023 and the distributor Compañía Comercial Mayorista SRL , which would supply “ El Buen Ojo ” brand yerba, benefited; Yerbatera Kleñuk, from Ignacio Kleñuk , from which yerba mate made with palo of the same brand was purchased; and to the company of Hugo Oscar Holowaty, from whom the “ Sierra del Imán ” brand was purchased .
Victoria Tolosa Paz endorsed the acquisition of more than 17 thousand tons of yerba mate made with stick. There is doubt about its quality
The latter was linked to the creation of fake companies to issue fraudulent invoices, generating tax credits that were then sold to real companies. In the file, promoted by the AFIP, three people were convicted, but finally the herbalist businessman was left out of the process.
The three firms offered exactly the same value for each thousand gram package, $1,518.90.
As published in the Official Gazette on November 8, 2023, 32 days before Peronism left power in the hands of La Libertad Avanza, the former portfolio in charge of Tolosa Paz justified the purchase in a requested “technical evaluation.” by the Secretariat of Social Policy Articulation to the National University of San Martín where advice was given on which proposals to accept and which to reject.
Leila Gianni , the legal undersecretary of the Ministry of Human Capital, appeared on two programs on the LN+ and TN channels showing the contents of the packages: “ Pure stick ,” she said.
“Three thousand tons of the five thousand that are in the warehouses correspond to grass, which is pure stick. I ask the former ministers if the Argentine people feed themselves with weed. The rest of the food is products acquired by the previous management to give to social organizations, but we are going to use them to assist the population in emergency situations,” he added.
The former ministers referred to by the person in charge of filing criminal complaints from the portfolio headed by Sandra Pettovello are the aforementioned national representative for the province of Buenos Aires, her benchmate Daniel Arroyo and Juan Zabaleta .
The “battle” between social organizations and the government of La Libertad Avanza over the food that is in the two warehouses brought to light the alleged irregularities in the purchase of supplies that were supposed to be for a food emergency.
The Villa Martelli warehouse where part of the herb acquired by Victoria Tolosa Paz is located
On April 4, when she was questioned about the million-dollar purchases of yerba mate made with palo, the Unión por la Patria representative responded through her social network X: “Yes, we bought thousands of kilos of yerba for the families of all provinces. In real life, mate, cooked mate, and mate cooked with milk are essential infusions in dining rooms, in schools, and on people's tables. “I advise you to put down the phone and go have some mates with your people.”
When reviewing the awards made by Tolosa Paz, Capital Humano's lawyers noticed the inconsistencies in the processing of the multimillion-dollar purchases , as happened with the purchase of oil and dust jackets, which were awarded in a “directed” manner, or irregularly to companies. and cooperatives linked to the power in power, or that were denounced for using invoices.
The spending on yerba mate made at the end of Alberto Fernández 's mandate represents 68.8% of the total of $30.5 billion pesos allocated to basic products to form the emergency stock for the most vulnerable people.
Under the orbit of the Ministry of Human Capital, headed by Sandra Pettovello, the Social Development portfolio remained, now with the rank of Secretary of State.
“This award raises suspicions about the transparency and suitability of the purchasing processes of the former Ministry of Social Development,” Casa Rosada highlighted to Infobae and recalled, as did lawyer Gianni, that “of the five thousand tons that are in The warehouses, 60%, more than three thousand tons, correspond to packages of yerba mate belonging to an irregular contract carried out by the previous administration, which was signed by Victoria Tolosa Paz and the Chief of Staff, Agustín Rossi , and that we are going to report because The audit revealed serious irregularities .”
A year earlier, when it was made public that the two missionary companies of Ignacio Kleñuk and Hugo Oscar Holowaty - along with three other companies - had won Public Tender No. 95-0072-LPU21, to "serve the population in a vulnerable situation , requested by the National Directorate of Food Safety, which depended on Social Development, officials from the National Yerba Mate Institute (INYM) warned that “ the merchandise showed signs of being adulterated .”
“We send the packages to be analyzed. We want stick, foreign substances, contaminants, all types of components that that package has to be analyzed. It is weed that the State bought for the most humble. “This is food, we cannot give them this garbage,” Marcelo Hacklander, an official at the National Yerba Mate Institute, said on that occasion.
The Government of Javier Milei ordered an audit of purchases in the State. Capital Humano has already filed several complaints in federal justice
From that institute, national authorities were advised to “analyze all merchandise before distributing it for consumption.” For his part, Cristian Klingbeil, now former president of the Association of Agricultural Producers of Misiones (APAM), reminded the publication Bichos de Campo: “We denounced that the weed purchased was of poor quality. Tea, yuyo and a little bit of grass were mixed. What's more, I had the opportunity to see one of those packages of merchandise, because they gave it to one of our workers, and you had to have courage to take that. We who are in the activity immediately realize that there are strange things,” he said.
From grass to oil
The Ministry of Human Capital had already detected irregularities in the allocation of food for the most vulnerable sectors on April 27.In that case, he denounced those responsible for the former Ministry of Social Development for alleged “direction” in the tender for $613,974,500 for the purchase of 2,700,000 one and a half liter bottles of sunflower oil . The anomalies were detected by the Administrative Investigations Attorney's Office (PIA).
This type of maneuver had already been revealed by La Libertad Avanza through a series of internal audits in which overpricing of up to 500% was discovered; posterization in purchases; direction towards companies and societies; and “lack of traceability” in the destination of food for social programs.
The last two ministers of Social Development of Alberto Fernández: Juan Zabaleta and Victoria Tolosa Paz
The award, according to the documentation provided to the Court, corresponds to purchase order 132 processed through file 2022-89392670 and which “was made for the acquisition of 2,700,000 units of sunflower oil in the singular format of 1.5 liters to mitigate the demands for food aid for the population in vulnerable situations.”
The complaint - published by this media - highlights that in several points of the file the firm that was the beneficiary “Proveeduría Integral MC SRL” and whose owners turn out to be “Giuliano Carmelo Pellicori and Luisa Bianca Pellicori” is directly mentioned.
The PIA described that, from the electronic file of that certification, it appears that those responsible for the company “ had signed with the seal of another SRL, Alimentos Fransro SRL , also theirs, which like other companies also participated in several tenders, and created for this purpose.”
The document describes that this irregular situation " denotes the possible breach of the duties of a public official by not correctly collating the documentation provided in the proceedings without making any reservations."
The questioned weed tender published in the Official Gazette
Another of the irregularities detected by the PIA was “the expiration of the three-day period to complement the missing documentation presented in the file at the time.”
On October 25, 2022 - Tolosa Paz was already minister of the area, replacing Juan Zabaleta - the Purchasing and Contracting Directorate shared the Technical Report along with other directorates.
The complaint also reflects that “in said report, observations were made about the products offered, which led to the request for the presentation of complementary documentation on October 28, 2022 by the Evaluation Commission -Julio Aníbal Talia-, giving the deadline as compliance by November 3, 2022″.
Despite the summons, the company that would win the tender for more than 600 million pesos, only added the missing documentation 20 days after the deadline, which “ violated the principle of equality ” with the rest of the bidders. in case there was. Reason why, according to the complaining officials, the previous authorities “departed from the principle of legality in clear violation of the applicable regulations.”
The direction that the social portfolio officials would have made would not only be due to the concessions granted to the beneficiary LLC, but also because the demands were adapted to the product that it offered, which is why the beneficiary company " was the only bidder " .
On February 1, 2023, the Ministry of Social Development increased the contract amount by 35% for another $214,891,110.
The questioned purchase began when the Minister of Social Development was Juan Zavaleta, but was awarded by his successor, Victoria Tolosa Paz.
