Buenos Aires, Argentina.- Argentine President Javier Milei on Tuesday fired the head of the state-owned company that mines coal and produces energy in Patagonia over suspicions of bribery and influence peddling in negotiations with an Israeli company interested in acquiring 30,000 tons of coal.
Although the case came to light through a newspaper article and is not yet under judicial investigation, the ultra-liberal President made a drastic decision against Thierry Decoud, the intervenor of the company Yacimientos Carboníferos Río Turbio (YCRT), in what can be considered the first well-founded suspicion of corruption that affects the Government.
“The dismissal of the Yacimientos Río Turbio inspector occurred because whenever the president detects that there is not absolute transparency in management, he will always remove the person responsible,” said the presidential spokesman, Manuel Adorni, in a press conference. “Not because he is actually responsible, but because he wants everything to be carried out with total transparency.”
Decoud’s departure was triggered by the failed negotiations with the Israeli company TEGI for the sale of 30 thousand tons of coal in exchange for 2.1 million dollars, which would have represented YCRT’s first export after five years.
On Monday, the newspaper Clarín published audio recordings of two alleged intermediaries of the state-owned company asking the representative of the Israeli company in Argentina for a bribe as a condition for moving forward with the operation. “I have nothing to do with the company. Absolutely nothing. I am a business facilitator so that this deal can happen. If you want it to happen, we are a team, we all go in the same direction. I can make this happen,” said the intermediary, who identified himself as Andrés Gross and, according to Clarín, is a “friend” of the intervenor Decoud. The Argentine newspaper, which did not report how it obtained the audio recordings, published that the operation ultimately did not prosper due to TEGI’s refusal to pay the intermediaries. After the conversation was published, the now-displaced intervenor said in a statement that so far no coal sales had been made because the offers presented were below the market price or the payment and contract modalities were not convenient. Regarding the audio recordings, he said that “none of the participants in these meetings have any ties or contracts with YCRT” and that behind the dissemination of the conversations “there is a clear political intention to hinder the coal sales process that is still open.” Despite the explanation from the state company, Adorni indicated that “while the facts are being clarified, the president has made the decision to dismiss the intervener.” The spokesman announced that the government will soon decide how to continue with the administration of the deposits in the town of Río Turbio, in the province of Santa Cruz and located 2,700 kilometers south of Buenos Aires. Meanwhile, opposition legislator Graciela Ocaña filed a criminal complaint with the courts on Tuesday against the former intervener Decoud and the two intermediaries. The state company was created in 1958 and was privatized in 1994. In 2002 it was again placed under state control. In addition to its coal deposits, it also produces energy through its thermal power plant.
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