The text and image with which Javier Meili once again defends Sandra Pettovello | With insults and without any evidence

Amid a controversy over tonnes of food stored in warehouses by the government, President Javier Miley once again defended his Human Capital Minister, Sandra Pettovello, without showing any elements to support his statements. “The attack on Pettovello reveals the pathetic way politics is conducted, “They detect a noble cause and behind it they build a mountain of corruption,” the far-right wrote this Sunday on his X account (formerly Twitter).

“When an honest person comes forward to eradicate corruption and help reaches without middlemen, Very corrupt people come out in large numbers to condemn the lack of social sensitivity, when in fact they are defending the kiosk/job.The president asserted, along with an image of the minister, “an immoral, hypocrite, fool and liar.”

This tweet was published this Sunday, a few hours after the raids ordered by the Ministry of Justice on food warehouses located in Villa Martelli and Tafí Viejo. The raids were carried out after a double irregularity was detected: Not only did Pettovello fail to comply with a court order to present a food distribution plan It was saved instead of being distributed to dining halls and picnic areas, But lists of varying quantities of goods were also provided depending on who needed it.

Miley, who this Saturday attended the presidential inauguration of Nayib Bukele in El Salvador after a tour of the United States, spoke last Friday about the criticism of Pettovello, one of her most trusted officials, although without directly mentioning the food scandal.

“And then they criticize Pettovelo… without a doubt the best minister in the social sector since the return of democracy”The whole was published in the previous government.

That day, praise also came from presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni. “Frankly, Minister Pettovello is not only not in the discussion for PresidentBut the president does not stop attaching importance to it,” the official said at his usual press conference.

,She is number one and is giving her all in such a complex ministry. And what has happened in social assistance in recent years, canteens, schemes, issues that did not work or had a certain lack of transparency, there are many things we did not like. The president’s spokesman stressed, “He is doing an incredible job so that the aid reaches and there is no one in the middle who grabs what does not belong to him.”

The government keeps coming and going over the shortage in food distribution

As Página/12 has been denouncing, the Government decided from the beginning not to distribute food to soup kitchens in popular neighborhoods and decided to launch a campaign to publicly and criminally discredit the social movements that supported those places. They did not want them as mediators, they always said, and they held them responsible for the irregularities and called for an “audit” by Minister Pettovello. They went through various “arguments” to explain why they don’t deliver food to organizations. At first he accused them of using “Ghost Eaters” False advantage. Beyond the misleading and distorted facts, do people go hungry without eating? When Pettovello said that those who are hungry should “come one by one”, it was clear that the strategy is to break up the organized poor and unemployed.

When? After it was revealed that 5 billion kilos of food was stored to make matters worse, the discussion turned: of the tower –Who is the brother of former Buenos Aires senator Joaquin de la Torre– He said it was goods for emergencies and climate disasters. Presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni joined that argument, even though he insisted that the issue was the minister’s disclosed audit. The list of stocked products delivered to Casanello makes it clear that the stock is different from those for exceptional cases. Later, the government said that the food purchased by the previous government was of poor quality. And there was a huge amount of hay. Even the security minister, Patricia Bullrich, got involved: “Human capital doesn’t save anything, what it does is prevent food from being stolen,” she said.

The matter escalated further when social leader Mo Juan Grabois In his X account, he said that among the approximately 6 million kilos of food reported to the courts by Capital Humano were 339,867 kg of powdered milk which expires in July, cornmeal which is also close to expiring and rice along with vegetables which have already spoiled. In other words, in their desire to save food, they started letting it rot.

De la Torre, the scapegoat

Faced with this, De la Torre was the first to fall. Even the new Chief of Staff, Guillermo Francos, spoke on the issue and explained why he was removed. “From what the minister told me,” he said, “the information he gave him about these foods in the warehouses did not include that some had an expiration date, as in the case of powdered milk. When he learned that the milk powder was expiring in July, Pettovello ordered its immediate distribution and took action with the officer in charge, which led to his resignation. If this is taken as genuine, it would be worrying if the head of human capital, with all the uproar over this issue, does not know what foods his ministry has, when the poverty rate is over 57% and more than 60% of boys, girls and adolescents suffer from food insecurity.

De la Torre was reported to the Anti-Corruption Office by the Ministry itself and also announced a criminal complaint against them, but not for the food problem but Contracts through the Organization of Ibero-American States (OEI)An international organization that usually enters into agreements with different countries for specific projects through which experts are called in externally (although its usual themes are education, science, culture).

What does not appear in the complaint is the bidding and purchase by the current government of lentils and oil through the OEI for the dining hall and picnic areas, for which 6,772,500,000 pesos have already been disbursed from the state treasury. It bears Minister Pettovello’s signature. As this newspaper reported, the OEI takes a 5 percent commission and has no local control. But the progress of the investigation could compromise the minister herself.

Pettovello’s signature

Pettovello may not know it, but she could consider herself condemned. If the OA follows the path of the funds transferred to the OEI, it will find that on March 6 a resolution was published approving a complementary act to a cooperation agreement between the Secretariat of Children and the International Organization for Children, which is ordered to transfer 6,772,500,000 pesos of public funds.

The document, which was revealed by this newspaper, is signed only by the minister, despite the fact that state contract rules establish that if the figure exceeds 2.5 billion, the chief of staff must sign it. The money in question would have several purposes. On the one hand, the contracts that would have been diverted and on the other, as reported Page 12the purchase of food, for which Capital Humano handed over the bidding and acquisition of pulses and oil to the OEI in exchange for a 5% commission. Contrary to what the government said, not everything was acquired by the previous administration. Now this method is also being used to avoid local controls.