Alexander Alfie
04/19/2021 19:05
Clarín.com
Politics
Updated 04/19/2021 19:30
The Government appointed Leonardo Flores to head of Public TV, replacing Eliseo Álvarez, who resigned last week due to health problems, after the scandal of the bags with $ 11.4 million.
The new executive director of the state channel was its artistic manager and
had joined in early 2020, led by Álvarez.
The president of Radio y Televisión Argentina (RTA), Rosario Lufrano, led her inauguration ceremony in Studio 1 of Public TV, before officials and workers of the channel.
Lufrano stated there that the objective of the current administration is the "reconstruction of public media" and regain "the prestige of the screen" of the state channel.
He also highlighted the trajectory of Flores, who has 30 years of experience in Argentina and abroad.
A source from the channel assured
Clarín
that "Leo Flores was Álvarez's right-hand man on Public TV. But his last assignment before entering here played against him so that he could assume the other position that Álvarez also had before resigning," as Vice President of RTA, the state company that runs Radio Nacional and Public TV.
Is that "Leo" Flores lived for several years in Miami and
was manager of the News of Channel 41
of that city, America Tevé, whose
editorial line for the Hispanic anti-Castro American population
did not pass the filter of young campers who refer to these issues in the Minister of Culture, Tristán Bauer.
In fact, the Emmy Awards that Flores won in 2016 for the journalistic investigation "Petare: the tomb of Chavismo", is an
allegation against the government of Nicolás Maduro
and in favor of the Venezuelan opposition that at that time was headed by Henrique Capriles and Leopoldo López .
The camper wanted to assume Martín Bonavetti
, who had held the executive direction of Public TV during Tristán Bauer's administration at RTA.
But the secretary of Media and Public Communication, Francisco "Pancho" Meritello and the head of RTA, Rosario Lufrano, managed to impose Leo Flores as executive director of the channel.
However, they were unable to appoint Flores to be Lufrano's second, as vice president of RTA, the other position that Álvarez had and that will not be filled by Flores.
"We are analyzing who to put there,"
official sources
told
Clarín
.
Sources close to Bauer assured that "at no time" did they discuss with Meritello the possibility of appointing Bonavetti on Public TV. "Someone who had nothing to do with Bauer or Bonavetti took over," who works as Undersecretary of Space Management and Special Projects, they raised from Culture. They said the same about Meritello.
But the truth is that last week there were strong debates in both work teams about who should be Álvarez's replacement. And
the name of Bonavetti sounded very strong,
since he had held that position under Bauer's management, when Cristina Kirchner was President of the Nation, and
the News Management was in the hands of La Cámpora and the flagship program was 6-7- 8
, where opposition leaders and even journalists from the channel itself were reviled, as was the case with Juan Miceli.
Meritello and Bauer "live in the same building, cross paths and meet a thousand times, but there is no intention of managing Public TV. Obviously (Bauer)
is interested, as in any other sector of the government
. Only here we do things together in content, but there is nothing more than that. For example, the channel broadcasts some special concerts of the Centro Kirchner or Tecnópolis, such as the tribute to Astor Piazzolla ", clarified sources from the Ministry of Culture.
Meritello is on the fourth floor of the Kirchner Cultural Center and Bauer has its offices one floor above, so
their meetings to exchange ideas are common
.
"The assumption of Leo Flores marks a continuity in the profile of Public TV, which
It is
a service channel, where there is no pro-government militancy,
as was done during the Bonavetti-Bauer administration, "stated sources from the state channel.
Flores will also have to answer to the Justice about the route taken by the $ 11.4 million that was withdrawn in Public TV bags, when Álvarez was in charge of the relationship with the different managements and suppliers of the state channel.
The prosecutor Gerardo Pollicita
plans to summon
the executives who intervened in the withdrawal of that money and its subsequent irregular distribution.
Since the scandal broke out on Public TV 40 days ago,
Guillermo Siaira, Director of Administration and Finance, has already left;
Diego Pascual, Director of Personnel;
and Ernesto Molinero, Production Manager, who had contracts with Public TV and submitted their resignations, at Lufrano's request.
After dismissing those officials and intervening in the areas involved, the authorities
prohibited
Alejandro de la Torre, deputy director of Administration and Finance,
from entering the canal
;
Ariel Berliner, Assistant Production Manager;
and Andrea Mendes Guimaraes, Head of Accounting for Public TV.
And the last measure that was known, before the resignation of Eliseo Álvarez and the assumption of Leo Flores, was when the General Syndicate of the Nation (SIGEN)
fired the "militant auditor"
of Public TV, Rolando Oreiro, based on a journalistic investigation of
Clarín
. It is that the auditor had to investigate the illegal withdrawal of the $ 11.4 million, but had been appointed irregularly, since he had taken a voluntary retirement as auditor of INCAA, which he finished collecting a few months before assuming in RTA, and had falsified your affidavit to join RTA.
