by The federal prosecutor of La Rioja, María Virginia Miguel Carmona, asked Judge Daniel Herrera Piedrabuena to investigates 1,060 people who worked in the provincial government of leader K Ricardo Quintela and that they would have improperly collected the social plans of the National Program for Socio-productive Inclusion and Local Development “Potenciar Trabajo”.
Furthermore, he requested that They were investigated for the crime of fraud to the detriment of the Public Administration and the provincial and national officials who illegally gave them that benefit were investigated.
Notwithstanding this, the representative of the Public Prosecutor’s Office requested that the investigation be deepened to identify the and provincial and national officials who have intervened in the granting of said benefits, due to the possible violation of their duties as a public official.
This, because they would have violated “the regulations that iprevents the granting of the benefit to those who do not comply with the established legal requirements, while they should have carried out the corresponding control and monitoring” to avoid not only “economic damage to the National State, but also that the money intended for this purpose is effectively credited to those who really need it to survive.”
The request from prosecutor Miguel Carmona occurs within the framework of a detachment from the preliminary investigation carried out, since last November 8, by the Fiscal Unit for the Investigation of Crimes related to Social Security (UFISES).
For its part, The national government has already dismissed 5,000 state employees who received this benefit.
In this investigation, “alleged illicit maneuvers were detected by the beneficiaries of the Empower Work Program, who turned out to be at the same time employees of the Government of the Province of La Rioja, failing to comply with the regulations of the aforementioned Program, since it establishes – among others requirements – that the intended beneficiaries They cannot fulfill functions in a dependency relationship, and if this circumstance occurs after his inclusion in the Program, he should immediately notice his withdrawal.”
Thus, according to the investigation carried out by the UFISES, a series of payments were identified that came from the State coffers to pay for the social plan to people who did not meet the requirements to receive it, which would have caused an estimated damage of $82,680,000 to the national heritage.
Now, in his presentation, the representative of the Public Prosecutor’s Office in La Rioja asked the federal judge of Rioja to enable the judicial fair, and summons the 1,060 people accused to give an investigative statement in order to the crime of fraud to the detriment of the Public Administration. Likewise, he required a series of evidentiary measures and asked the judge to ask the Ministry of Human Capital of the Nation to, urgently, suspend the social planes involved.
On the other hand, a federal prosecutor from Salta is investigating some 200 public employees from Salta for irregular payment of the Potenciar Trabajo social plan, within the framework of the actions initiated by the UFISeS. Sources from the Federal Public Ministry in Salta inform that the actions are directed by the head of the area of Complex Cases of the Salta Fiscal Unit, federal prosecutor Ricardo Toranzos.
The proceedings began on December 26, aimed at verifying the situation. of more than 200 public employees of the provincewho would have received the economic benefit provided for said plan, aimed at people in a state of high vulnerability.
The preliminary investigation began by virtue of the actions of the UFISES, regarding the irregular collection of the Empower Work social plan by public employees.
Within the framework of the investigation, which is being carried out under the classification of fraud against the public administration, several measures have already been taken in order to verify the incompatibilities between the employees who received the payments for said social plan.
