Corruption has proved a popular spectator sport in Argentina this year. Attempts by the government to shift the spotlight away from an investigative journalism programme by scheduling domestic football matches at the same time failed to dampen the public’s appetite for tale of official corruption. Periodismo Para Todos, a Sunday night broadcast which regularly entertains viewers with stories of alleged secret vaults and bags of cash stashed in the mansion belonging to the presidential couple, the late Nestór Kirchner (2003-2007) and his wife and successor Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, appears to have broken through the longstanding cynicism of the Argentine public.
A recent survey by the global anti-corruption lobby Transparency International (TI) found that 72% of Argentines believed that corruption has increased in the country over the last two years. President Fernández began her second term in office in 2011. The result placed Argentina at the top of the rankings of corruption perceptions in Latin America. The daily Clarín (implacably opposed to the president) noted that most of the government’s audit and control bodies have been systematically weakened, citing the fact that the anti-corruption office and the financial information unit have failed to prosecute any officials on corruption charges in the last 10 years.
Back in April, at the height of the Periodismo Para Todos revelations, a poll carried out by Raúl G. Aragón y Asociados found that 70% of the public believed the corruption allegations were true, but only 14% believed that anyone would be prosecuted as a result.
Other charges
In a separate development, the minister for interior trade, Guillermo Moreno, faces prosecution over allegations of abuse of public office. The charges against Moreno, the chief enforcer of the government’s unorthodox economic policies, relate to his role at the national statistics institute, Indec. Moreno stands accused of undermining, then sacking, senior economists at Indec and replacing them with government loyalists willing to manipulate the inflation data. Potentially, he could end up facing a two-year jail sentence. At the very least, the case will sap energy and political capital from one of the government’s most bruising economic enforcers.
Meanwhile, Richard Jaime, the first transport secretary of the Kirchner era (2003-2009) is being investigated for siphoning off Arg$2.3m (US$450,000) from a train company contract. On 12 July, a judge ordered his immediate arrest, for fear he would attempt to flee. The opposition has been attempting to link Jaime to the Kirchners. Speaking on Radio Mitre over the weekend of 13-14 July, the former vice-president Julio Cobos (2007-2011), who fell out with Fernández and the FPV, claimed that Jaime reported directly to Nestór Kirchner.
Drug running concerns
Cocaine with an estimated street value of UK£90m (US$135m) was found packed inside a container of frozen beef shipped from Argentina to Tilbury docks in Essex, the UK, in May. The seizure was the latest in a number of large drug hauls found in planes and ships with Argentina as their port of origin.
On 10 July Leandro Despouy, the head of Argentina’s comptroller-general’s office (Auditoría General de la Nación, AGN), said that some of the country’s ports and airports were effectively “free zones for drug traffickers”. Members of the government led by President Fernández have dismissed these claims as exaggerated, unfounded, and politically motivated. But many independent observers say that Argentina is increasingly being used as a drug transit country.
Speaking to Radio Continental, Despoy said, “There is an overall lack of concern for drug enforcement, and in some of our main ports there is a deliberate absence of controls, the State has abdicated”. His comments came after the AGN published a report highlighting a series of failures in the ports of Buenos Aires, Campana, and San Lorenzo in the July 2010-June 2011 period. These included scanners that didn’t work properly, staff shortages and a scarcity of sniffer dogs.
- Tax authorities investigate supreme court
After initial denials, the head of Argentina’s tax authority, Ricardo Echegaray, conceded that the agency was examining the tax affairs of the Supreme Court Chief Justice Ricardo Lorenzetti, his family, and the general administrator of the supreme court, Carlos Marchi. Opposition media interpreted the revelation as a sign of the government applying pressure to the court, following its rejection of the government’s proposed reforms to the judiciary.
End of preview - This article contains approximately 714 words.
Subscribers: Log in now to read the full article
Not a Subscriber?
Choose from one of the following options
