The disputes between the provinces and the central governments, such as the one now carried out by the governor of
Chubut
,
Ignacio Torres
(PRO), with the president
Javier Milei
, have several antecedents.
Some conflicts are almost as unprecedented as the current one and function as a mirror of history.
It happens with the episode that starred the former radical president of
Río Negro
,
Horacio Massaccesi
, who in 1991 seized
16.6 million dollars
that the Central Bank had in the coffers of the Bank of Río Negro for a debt of the Nation.
A conflict that ended in the Supreme Court, following a scandal with former president
Carlos Menem
and former Minister of Economy,
Domingo Felipe Cavallo
.
Also on a Friday, like the day Torres stated that "not one more barrel of oil will come out of Chubut for Argentina," on July 5, 1991, the then radical governor Massaccesi entered with his Minister of Economy, Raúl Di Nardo, and the chief of the Rio Negro Police to the General Roca branch of the Banco de Río Negro.
There he seized 16.6 million dollars from the "Regional Treasury" that the Central Bank had in that provincial banking entity.
The entry occurred hours before the Government met to celebrate at the Quinta de Olivos the marriage of the then Minister of the Interior - in charge of relations with the provinces -,
Julio Mera Figueroa
, with Agustina Braun Blaquier.
"We had made an agreement in May 1991 with the Minister of Economy Herman González and he paid a part of the debt that the Nation had with the province. The problem was that Herman resigned, Cavallo took over and blocked everything because radicalism did not provide a quorum for his package of laws," Horacio Massaccesi summarizes today the focus of that conflict, in dialogue with
Clarín
.
The former governor assures that he crossed paths with Cavallo in the Casa Rosada and the father of convertibility told him that the agreement was cut off due to the question of quorum.
"Finally, with Menem's envoys we made an agreement: the UCR gave a quorum, the first part of the package of laws was approved, an intermediate room was called, then Cavallo deposited what corresponded to us, which was 20 million dollars, and then the session continued," says Massaccesi.
But the Government envoys gave the UCR bad news: "
Mingo got angry, he says he does not need the second package of laws and he is not going to send the funds
."
The day that a governor of Patagonia "seized" 16.6 million dollars from the Central Bank for a national debt and ended in scandal: the fight between Horacio Massaccesi and Domingo Cavallo.
Annoyed, Massaccesi notified his radical peers of the decision he was going to take and sanctioned a "compensation of funds" decree.
The radical president argued that the national government "refused" since June 6 to return the Investment and Growth Bonds (BIC) titles, which he had delivered as collateral for a restructuring agreement for Banco Provincial Río Negro.
The BICs had been issued by the national government to settle a debt of 120 million dollars that Hidroeléctrica Norpatagónica (
NdR: Hidronor was a majority state company that sold energy to the National Interconnected System
) had with the province.
Massaccesi even analyzed making a proposal about oil and gas, as Chubut now warned, although he gave up moving in that direction.
"I evaluated doing what Torres said about natural resources, but it is a measure that generates rejection among citizens," explains the former Rio Negro governor, 33 years later.
So, what he did was call the press and, with the television cameras, he entered the General Roca branch of the Banco de Río Negro.
From the vaults he seized 16.6 million dollars from the "Regional Treasury" of the Central Bank.
"The agents who were inside the bank lied to us because there were more than 20 million and we only got 16.6," remembers who, four years later, launched himself into the presidential adventure (he was third, behind Carlos Saúl Menem and José Octavio Bordón).
The day that a governor of Patagonia seized 16.6 million dollars from the Central Bank for a Nation debt and ended in scandal: the fight between Massaccesi and Cavallo.
The provincial decree collided with national laws, decrees and resolutions, and ended in a legal battle.
With the support of those appropriated bonds, he withdrew the equivalent of that amount in
australes
- still valid until the last minute of 1991 -, an amount that helped him begin paying the salaries of the 30,000 public employees in the province.
Thus, he prevented his bank from falling into a situation of illiquidity and being intervened by the BCRA.
The president claimed to have analyzed the issue with the former president and then head of the UCR, Raúl Alfonsín, in Bariloche.
"We came," he said, "to the conclusion that there was no other way than this."
Like Torres de Chubut, more than three decades ago Massaccesi also had last-minute negotiations and strong public tensions with government officials.
Cavallo raises the tension and puts Río Negro in check
At a press conference on Saturday, Cavallo called on Massaccesi to return the funds within 24 hours.
The then new minister expressed that the only resources that the Treasury Palace had were:
Remove from "clearing" the bank that went into overdraft with the BCRA.
This could be the case if the Central Bank drew against the Banco de Río Negro deposit in the entity.
Force the closure of branches in Buenos Aires of banks that were not managed correctly.
The Court would be asked to
block the federal co-participation funds.
"If the government of Río Negro agrees to liquidate the provincial bank, the same mechanisms will be used as in the case of Rioja, that is, the Nation would take charge of all the financial services of the bank in the region operating through the branches of the Bank of the Argentine Nation," said Cavallo about a fresh precedent in the province of President Menem.
In another parallel with the current fight between Chubut and the national government, at that time
Cavallo described Massaccesi's attitude as "criminal."
And he stated: "These funds are property of the Central Bank and do not constitute a monetary base. It is
absolutely illegal
that they have been stolen and put into circulation if, as is said, the provincial government has paid salaries."
The day that a governor of Patagonia "seized" 16.6 million dollars from the Central Bank for a national debt and ended in scandal: the fight between Horacio Massaccesi and Domingo Cavallo.
"The Central Bank, with the support of the Federal Police, takes direct and immediate possession of the Regional Treasury to ensure that money does not continue to be withdrawn. This (through Río Negro) is a province, whatever the claims it makes, whose provincial bank owes so much to the BCRA that it is surely a net debtor to the Nation," Cavallo remarked, enraged.
There were several crossings with
declarative pyrotechnics
.
As is happening this summer with Chubut, Río Negro-Nación took up a large part of the public discussion that winter of 1991. The Menem Government even threatened with federal intervention and Cavallo showed himself willing to skip the province so that the Federal co-participation will reach the Rio Negro municipalities directly without going through the provincial coffers.
The governor
called Cavallo "stubborn
. "
The Nation requested the prosecution of Massaccesi, who was summoned for investigation at the end of August 1991. The Central Bank
removed the provincial Bank from "clearing" and delivered the blow that accelerated the negotiations.
Cavallo and Massaccesi together in prime time, after the scandal.
The resolution in the Supreme Court
On July 8, 1991,
the Supreme Court of Justice ordered the seizure of the province
of Río Negro up to the sum of 16 million dollars.
To comply with the ruling,
they withheld co-shareable funds
from taxes and oil royalties that corresponded to the province.
"Now I am willing to
negotiate an honorable exit
with the national authorities. But I recognize that I am at a disadvantage. If there is no settlement, then we will rationalize the province's bank and it is even possible that we will begin its privatization after recomposing the defaulter portfolio," Massaccesi pointed out at that time to
Clarín
.
After the intervention of the Supreme Court of Justice and an unfavorable wave, Massaccesi met with Cavallo and finally
waved the white flag
.
It was another Friday, August 9, 1991, just over a month after the political scandal broke out.
The day that a governor of Patagonia "seized" 16.6 million dollars from the Central Bank for a national debt and ended in scandal: the fight between Horacio Massaccesi and Domingo Cavallo.
Horacio Massaccesi finally complied with the decision of the Supreme Court of Justice, which withheld the funds from the province's co-participation and oil royalties for the Central Bank until covering the 16.6 million dollars that the governor had seized.
Cavallo highlighted the importance of having reached an agreement within the judicial mechanisms, avoiding the intervention of the province, and highlighted "that this -referring to the governor's commitments- should have been the path originally chosen by Río Negro."
As part of the agreement, the Ministry of Economy agreed to "help the province so that it can face the payment of July salaries."
The agreement came
two days before the provincial elections
in Río Negro, in which Massaccesi won re-election by a wider margin than expected.
"Political lack", Massaccesi's view on the Chubut conflict
"The country has been left without politics, there has been no political dialogue for a year, and it has deepened now," says Massaccesi, protagonist of a unique case in the discussion between provinces and the Nation.
"There are plenty of economists and a lack of politicians.
There is a recurring, historical issue: on the one hand they say that the provinces are the predators of the Nation and on the other hand, the other way around. Everything is due to an absence of a country model and a law of co-participation that comes from the (de facto) government of (Juan Carlos) Onganía," says the former senator and former conventional constituent of the 1994 reform.
And when referring to the conflict in Chubut, he summarizes: "In this framework, the Río Negro crisis takes on a fundamental character because it was resolved with a political agreement."
An instance to which, after the first ruling of the Justice and the announcement of the appeal by the Nation, the current bid between Torres and Milei has not yet reached.