The Ministry of Security, which commands Patricia Bullrichreported his former number two to the Anti-Corruption Office (OA) Vicente Ventura Barreiro by alleged interference in food tenders for federal prison inmates.
According to the document, to which he had access Infobaeit is detailed that Ventura Barreiro asked authorities of the Federal Penitentiary Service – which manages Fernando Martínez– “for the tenders for meals for inmates of federal prisons”, and expressed – in the alleged dialogue – that “When the minister left, he was going to be the next Minister of Security”.
“He also told him that he was not a ‘policeman’s policeman’ and that he was interested in knowing how the bidding documents for food for federal prisons were going to be written. He also asked him about the readjustment of prices for acquisitions already made, which are handled by the ‘legitimate payment’ system,” the text states.
The complaint also adds: “The deponent states that he responded that he did not need anything, that he had insisted a lot that the appointment of his own position be ad honorem because he knew that ‘this scourge of cartelized companies’ was a deep-rooted phenomenon. for a long time and I wanted to eradicate it. Mr. Martínez adds that, in response to this demonstration, Dr. Ventura Barreiro told him that, in any case, companies always put money in, to which the deponent reiterated that he did not need anything and that the one who really needs things is the Penitentiary Service, something that as Secretary of Security he had to know. The speaker added that, while he was there, he would tell the companies not to put more money anywhere. The Secretary of Security then asked him to give him the name of a lawyer he trusts so that he could settle with the companies, to which the protester told him that he does not have lawyers, that he does not deal with lawyers. At the insistence of Dr. Ventura Barreiro, the declarant continued to refuse and the Secretary of Security asked him to send him a list of the tenders, as they are going to come out.”
Under this scenario, the declarant maintains in the document that “he did not send him the specifications and, that same day, in the afternoon, Ventura Barreiro insisted with the request, to which the declarant gave him a contract document for raw foods, to which even though what he was asking for were sheets of cooked food.” And he continues: “Two hours later, Dr. Ventura Barreiro sent him the same document with corrections and additions that he suggested making.. Then, the declarant sent the two files to the technical area, headed by the General Director of Administration, Prefect Jorge Quintraman, in order to examine what the Secretary of Security requested. Two or three days later he received the technical return with the comparison of both documents. The required modifications coincided with the usual specifications that were precisely being changed in order to increase the participation of companies. The deponent states that at that moment he warned that this document must necessarily have been drawn up by a company, since those observations, which coincided with the previous documents, could not have been made in two hours. The complaint adds “the printing of the document in a single copy, which forms an inseparable part of this declaration.”
“The modifications suggested through Ventura Barreiro were focused on the background of the companies, which were intended to have experience in penitentiary establishments; that the company had a manufacturing plant less than one hundred kilometers away from the prison unit; and requested that any offer made below ten percent (10%) of the witness price be rejected, which they called ‘base price.'”
Following this, Martínez declares “that he, in the first instance, tried to investigate a little to find out who was behind all that movement, in order to inform superiority.” Along these lines, he highlights: “On June 13, he received a visit from the General Director of Priority Affairs, Lic. Daniel Barberis, who had been entrusted by the Head of the Advisory Cabinet Unit to find out what was happening with the prisons, from from a message he received from Dr. Maximiliano Rima, in which he asked about late payments for prison food. During that visit, Barberis asked him what was happening with the food and if he knew Maximiliano Rima. The deponent told him no, but that coincidentally the day before the Secretary of Security had also asked him about the issue of meals and told him everything that had happened at the meeting. After a few days, Ventura Barreiro spoke to the declarant again on WhatsApp to ask what had happened to the corrected statement.”
At the end of the complaint it is noted that Martínez “answered that the document had come out exactly as it had been drafted by the Undersecretary of Penitentiary Affairs, following the guidelines of transparency and broad participation and competence that the Minister had required, to which Dr. Ventura Barreiro responded: ‘What a mess!’, and hung up. Finally, on June 21, Mr. Daniel Barberis called the Chief of Staff Dr. Manfroni by phone because he had to tell him, together with the declarant, a serious fact related to prisons. An hour later they met, they told him what had happened and at that moment, Dr. Manfroni called, in front of those present, Dr. Julián Curi, Undersecretary of Penitentiary Affairs and immediately after the Minister requesting a meeting for the officials named. After that, Dr. Julián Curi summoned the speaker, who came to his study in order to relate these same events.
