He Municipal Comptroller Court of Bariloche will formally enter into its session a legal opinion that he requested several months ago on the direct hiring of the OPS company during the previous management and that pIt could lead to a liability trial and a reckoning against the officials who endorsed the successive agreements.
The investigation focuses on the actions of former mayor Gustavo Gennuso and several of his main collaborators.among them the former Chiefs of Staff Marcos Barberis (current Secretary of Tourism of Río Negro) and Marcela González Abdala (today a legislator), the former Secretary of the Treasury Diego Quintana, the former Secretary of Services Eduardo Garza and the legal advisors of the Executive, who intervened in the agreements and signed the resolutions.
The OPS company rented twenty heavy machines to the municipality for more than four yearswhich were intended for the conditioning of unpaved streets, the maintenance of stormwater and the management of garbage dumps. For this benefit he now claims a million-dollar debt, which accumulated because for a long time the municipality only made minor payments on account, waiting to consolidate the payments with the company’s receivership, which It was bankrupt and intervened by Justice.
He opinion prepared by the Comptroller’s legal advisor, Slapko Jankovic, lists the irregularities detected and opens the door to an administrative trial against Gennuso and other members of his cabinet, which is the strict function reserved for the Court, and which could lead to financial sanctions.
In addition, officials will be exposed to possible criminal charges.. One possibility is that the Comptroller himself promotes it or that the Municipal Executive does it. Mayor Walter Cortés has a direct interest in the issue due to the gross non-compliance that it inherited and that it refuses to validate without an in-depth examination of its legitimacy.
It was Cortés who, shortly after taking office, sent all the information on the OPS case to the Comptroller and requested a thorough evaluation.before deciding what to do with the accumulated debt.
If the OPS case reaches the ordinary courts (it would be in the newly created Contentious Administrative Court) the crimes to be investigated could in principle be the failure to fulfill duties of a public official and also the ideological falsehood of document by OPS, since when signing the initial contract it had declared bankruptcy for a few months and did not leave a record of that condition.
Failed deal
The company originally from Cipolletti managed to lift the bankruptcy last year and Its directors began the process to collect the large debt with the municipality of Bariloche. There was a private mediation that failed, and then OPS representatives tried to reach an agreement with Gennuso toto close a payment plan 7.92 million dollars. The mayor wanted to sign and close the issue before finishing his term as head of the municipality, but did not obtain the approval of the Comptroller.
Already on that occasion there was a legal opinion and another accounting opinion that they formulated severe criticism of direct hiring of OPSrenewed and expanded year after year between 2019 and 2023, and the documentary orphanhood of that relationship. Many of those elements were taken up and deepened now, by the new opinion that will be known today.
The conflictive link between the municipality and the company that had around twenty leased machines in Bariloche (mostly motor graders and backhoes) threatens to become a serious headache for Gennuso and for a good part of his cabinet.
Essentially, the points that the Court will seek to elucidate revolve around the direct contracting that benefited OPS, when there was no emergency or unforeseen event that prevented calling for bids, to the lack of registration of entry and exit dates of the machines, as well as the effective hours of service and their valuation. The decision to agree on a debt in dollars was also challenged, without technical basis and without endorsement by the Council.
The session of the Court of Comptroller scheduled for today was preceded by a unusual advertising, because that body usually works with greater reserve. As it turned out, there were calls not only for the press but for Mayor Cortés and the Executive’s legal advisor, Yanina Sánchezwho were the initial drivers of the research.
