Lucia Salinas
05/28/2021 7:53 PM
Clarín.com
Politics
Updated 05/28/2021 7:53 PM
Signed by a serious financial crisis,
Cristina Kirchner's boutique hotel in El Calafate has not reopened since 2016
. Unpaid municipal taxes, unpaid commercial fees and unpaid bills for electricity and water for millions of dollars are part of the debts linked to
Los Sauces Casa Patagónica,
for a total that
exceeds seven million pesos
. That includes one of the lands that Lázaro Báez exchanged with the former President to expand the tourist complex.
Rained ceilings, exposed moisture on several walls, fallen gates
, are just some of the signs of the debacle of one of the most expensive hotels in El Calafate, the first that the Kirchners built when they were already in the Casa Rosada.
This is Los Sauces Casa Patagónica, the
boutique complex adjacent to the vice president's residence in the tourist village.
Hotel Los Sauces by Cristina Kirchner in El Calafate.
Photo: Francisco Muñoz
After a series of repairs carried out at the request of the lawyer
Carlos Beraldi
, the judicial intervention sought to rent the facilities to be able to exploit it commercially, but the characteristics of the place
did not make it viable
.
To date, it only accumulates debts and
in the coming weeks it will return to the Kirchner family.
Both that hotel and another twenty properties included in the Máximo Condominium and Florencia Kirchner are part of the
investigations for alleged money laundering
that led to an indictment and
the first oral proceedings for Máximo Kirchner and his sister Florencia
.
It is within the framework of that case that judicial intervention had been ordered, which ended last month.
In one of the last reports signed by one of the judicial auditors, the financial situation of the boutique hotel was exposed.
The former Kirchner accountant (repentant in the Cuadernos case)
Victor Manzanares
said that
Los Sauces was rented to the Relats Group for 11 years, at 90 thousand dollars a month
: “this contract meant a sum of between 10 and 11 million dollars of income blank to the economy of the Kirchners ”.
This commercial relationship ended in 2016, because they did not agree on the amount of the canon to be renewed.
The Los Sauces Casa Patagónica hotel, owned by the Kirchners.
Photo: Francisco Muñoz
In the document presented before the Federal Oral Court 5 (TOF 5), which will be in charge of the money laundering lawsuit against Cristina, Máximo and Florencia Kirchner, the debts accumulated for various municipal services and fees were detailed.
In turn, the auditor
Jordi Kristoff
reflected in his report a set of administrative irregularities surrounding the hotel.
The liability number of Cristina Kirchner's favorite hotel is
7,706,728 pesos
.
The financial red was registered in the last judicial report, before returning to the Kirchner family the management of the hotels, the 26 condominium properties and the real estate.
First, the assets of the Los Sauces hotel were specified in terms of unpaid services that accumulated over the years. The auditor said that there are debts with Public Services Sociedad del Estado (SPSE) responsible for supplying the water and energy service, for a total sum of 834,101 pesos. That debt is computed to one of the lands that are part of the complex, "being located in the same" La Casona "one of the largest and most emblematic houses of the complex," explained the controller.
When explaining the hotel's financial situation, the judicial administrator indicated that the different ownership of the domain of the land, in which the Hotel Los Sauces Casa Patagónica is located, "is complicated", since there are services billed by SPSE to Los Sauces SA, (which is the real estate agency and not the hotel) for all the electricity and water services, and for Distrigas SA, to Los Sauces SA for a meter and Cristina Kirchner, for another two, the three meters belonging to the complex and this from a time long before the judicial interventions ”.
The Los Sauces hotel accumulates millionaire debts.
Photo: Francisco Muñoz
Thus, the real estate agency had to take care of services that corresponded to the boutique hotel.
The auditor indicated that the payment during these years to regularize the debt sought to avoid supply cuts
.
Only for the gas service, the debt amounts to 645,049 pesos.
From a legal point of view, the auditor made another reservation.
The billing to Los Sauces SA, corresponds to be faced by the company, acting on behalf and order of a third party that is the tourist complex.
In turn, "the billing to Cristina Kirchner, obviously she should take care of the debt, also on behalf of the tourist complex," the report noted.
From a commercial and economic point of view, the debt "corresponds without a doubt to assign it to the tourist complex that received the services," continued the controller Kristoff but raised a question: "Who is the property owner of the complex?"
It happens that the hotel is located on three lots, 42-C parc 5- h property of Los Sauces, where the “La Casona” is built, and the rest of the houses and facilities on two lots that belong to the condominium ”Maximum and Florencia Kirchner ”, 42-C 5-j and the fifth 10A, included in the Condominium.
Hotel Los Sauces, owned by the Kirchner family.
Closed and in debt.
Photo: Francisco Muñoz
That last plot belonged to Lázaro Báez,
who made a swap with Cristina Kirchner so that he can expand the boutique hotel.
In order to pay him, instead of giving him money, the vice president gave him his former business partner a part of another piece of land that he had in Punta Soberana (El Calafate) there and thus the "condominium" was formed.
That land they share was valued at 17.4 million pesos.
Land that Cristina Kirchner and Lázaro Báez have in a condominium, valued at $ 17,400,000.
Photo Néstor García.
The debts also reach those lands.
The detail indicates that parcel 5h recorded in the name of Los Sauces owes municipal fees 109,515.38 pesos, parcel 5j that appears in the name of Máximo Kirchner, 1,401,832.51 pesos, and the land that Báez exchanged to the vice president , 798,488.56 pesos.
The account shows a
debt linked to the Casa Patagónica hotel, only with the municipality of 2,309,836.45 pesos.
But there is more.
There is a trade tax credit, for the authorization and operation of the complex in charge of Panatel SA, which belongs to the Relats family and which was the only one that operated the hotel until 2016. That debt is 3,917,742.50 pesos, " because it was never terminated, despite the fact that its concession ended in March 2016, that
is, the years 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 are due
.
Obviously, the debt belongs to that last concessionaire but I do not know what responsibility may fall to the grantor of the complex, after the end of the concession ”, explained Kristoff.