Julio De Vido does not stop adding prosecutions and complicating his judicial situation. The Buenos Aires Federal Chamber
prosecuted
this Thursday the former Minister of Federal Planning for the payment of a
56 percent
surcharge and suspicious financial advances to the companies Urban Baires and SVC for the works
for the creation of the Argentine Digital Terrestrial Television System (SATVD- T) of the State.
In this way, the former minister of former president Cristina Kirchner
already has two sentences
(Tragedy of Eleven to 5 years and 8 months) and purchase of junk trains from Spain (4 years),
plus seven prosecutions
in the Skanska, Cuadernos de Bribes, the soap opera “Mamá Corazón” by Andrea del Boca, the irregular granting of subsidies to groups, two cases of fraud in Odebrecht works and the expansion of Fiscal Coal Deposits, among others.
However, De Vido
does not have a firm conviction
because the sentences still need to be ratified by the Federal Chamber of Criminal Cassation or the Court. He is under house arrest in his house in a country in Puerto Natal.
This new prosecution also implied
an embargo of 50 million pesos
which, added to those of the other 7 prosecuted for the maneuvers, reached
a total figure of 400 million pesos.
The 48-page ruling was decided by chamber members Martín Irurzun and Eduardo Farah while their colleague and Cristina Kirchner's former lawyer, Roberto Boico,
voted for the dismissal of the powerful former minister K.
As in the case of YCF, De Vido did not do the work directly
but through a State university to surely evade procedures and controls
. In this case it was the University of San Martín (USAN).
“The evidence collected allows us to assert the material intervention of the named person
in each of the sections of the maneuver,
including the instances in which the successive addendums were signed,” he added.
The chamber stressed that "it cannot be forgotten that, according to the accusation, these instruments were aimed
at expanding the project's budget
and altering the purpose of the contracts, becoming the mechanism that was used to channel
expenditures that were considered fraudulent
."
To convert De Vido's initial dismissal into prosecution, the court considered that De Vido brought the project's Advisory Council
into the orbit of his ministry.
“Moreover, it stipulated that the head of the Ministry would preside over it. It was De Vido himself who approved MINPLAN resolution 1785/2009 of September 18, 2009, and with it, the Agreement for the formation of the Advisory Council” of this digital TV project to "democratize information," the ruling added. .
In this way, “the alleged commission of the events would have been carried out through specific conduct displayed by that public official,
which warrants considering him, at least in this instance, co-author of the crime of fraudulent administration
to the detriment of the public administration.”
In the statement, the prosecutions of directors of the National University of San Martín (USAN) and the company Urban and SVC were confirmed:
Luis Alberto Vitullo, Carlos Rafael Ruta, Raúl Eugenio Pieroni, Carlos Maximiliano Schwerdtfeger, Horacio Hernán Pérez, Martín Diego Ramírez and Domingo Alfredo Simonetta.
To the original contract, De Vido y Ruta, former rector of USAN, added several changes from 2009 onwards.
Then, “the economic damage that is imputed, with respect to the amounts incurred for the civil works and acquisition of equipment, arises first when taking into account the amounts budgeted by the companies URBAN BAIRES and SVC and approved and received by the authorities of the former Ministry of Planning and UNSAM”.
These reached “the sums of $222,993,181 for carrying out the work in the aforementioned buildings, and by SVC SA in the amount of $107,376,072 for the technological equipment.”
However, the National Appraisals Tribunal (TTN) “set the following values for both items: $129,532,464.38 for civil works; and for the equipment $81,924,698.81.” “This determined an extra price in the budget of $93,428,892.74 in the civil works
(72.15%)
and in relation to the real value of the complete CIARDI/MOCAP equipment, the extra price that is noted with respect to what was budgeted is the sum of $25,451,373, 19 (31.07%)”, indicated the Federal Chamber of Buenos Aires.
In this way, the total value of what was approved and contracted after the successive addendums "was the sum of $330,369,253, while its market value was $211,457,163, which determines that the total difference in excess or overpricing “It was $118,912,089.87, that is,
56.23%
,” the ruling highlighted.
During the investigation, all the defenses agree in criticizing
the TTN appraisal and the report of the Corps of Accounting Experts.
However, the Chamber confirmed most of their content and
highlighted the testimonial statement of economics graduate Mariángeles Novelle, who was administrative coordinator of the UNSAM Infrastructure Management.
Novelle stated that
“regarding the financial advances, I was the one who recommended to Raúl Pieroni that he stop signing them.
First, they are unusual, they are not included within the framework of public works and second, there came a time when
they were uncontrollable
. Previously, projects were paid with work advances after confirming the work without financial advances.
The economist told the court that "in addition, Urban Baires was left with a lot of money from the method that Secretary General Scherdwfeder -sic- had invented,
which left between twenty and thirty million in their possession without justification.
"