Extreme Government Gets New Call for Tenders for Waterway

Seeking to reduce the cost of a strategic activity by 30%, which was the judicial domain for the alleged payment of bribes to Kirchner

The
Government prepare a
tender for
dredging and tagging of the
Paraná River, a company of 200 million dollars a year in works of improvement of the fluvial cbad, with a toll of 3 dollars per ton for each ship entering or leaving. The current dealer,
Hidrovía SA, want to keep the concession,
but faces a stumbling block: it is mentioned in
the cause of notebooks.

The main companies in the sector, Belgian, Dutch and Chinese, are interested in the sector. But the call for tenders is delayed and would be ready in May 2020. The concession expires in January 2021.

In 1995, the government of Carlos Menem was awarded to Hidrovía SA, a joint venture created by the Belgian company Jan de Nul, which provides technical know-how (dredging and works on the river), and by Emepa SA, Gabriel Romero .

The local businessman was repentant in the folder of the notebooks before the judge Claudio Bonadio, who had paid to the government of Cristina Kirchner a debt of 600 000 dollars for the extension of the concession, for a period of eight years, which was fixed by the decree n 2010

Elisa Carrió, MP and head of the Civic Coalition, denounced Romero and Hidrovía SA for alleged smuggling and drug trafficking crimes at the port and customs terminals of Gran Rosario. Company spokespersons did not answer the question
THE NATION on the future call for tenders.

In the bidding process, under Mariano Saúl, Undersecretary for Ports and Inland Waterways, the cost of the toll will be reduced by at least 30%. The current tariff of $ 3.06 per ton governs the government of Eduardo Duhalde.

The government's strategic goal is to reduce logistics costs and improve the competitiveness of foreign trade and domestic product prices.

The biggest toll company in the country has powerful interests. Jan de Nul said that he wanted to continue even without Romero. But there are others: the Chinese holding Shanghai Dredging Company (SDC) and the Dutch Boskalis, Dredging and Van Hool.

The Minister of Transport,
Guillermo Dietrichconfirmed at
THE NATION that his portfolio works in the bidding and that his spokesmen have argued that there would be anti-corruption clauses to avoid the participation of suspicious companies.

An advocacy NGO for users and consumers opened the debate. The Procurar Association, chaired by Enrique Millán, sent letters to the President
Mauricio Macri and Dietrich, demanding that Romero be excluded from the market for having confessed to the courts the payment of bribes.

The NGO reported that Romero had declared in a reprimand to have paid $ 600,000 in 2010 to Roberto Baratta, the right-winger of former minister Julio De Vido, to extend the dredging concession. He also paid $ 500,000 a year to former Secretary of Transport Ricardo Jaime.

For this reason, in his letters to Macri and Dietrich, Procurar also asked the government to include anti-corruption clauses preventing bidders from participating in companies related to the payment of bribes. In the government, they badure that this will be accomplished in Rajatabla.

He also asked to declare "the illegitimacy of Decree 113 because it is void, absolutely nil and foolish". This decree had determined the extension of the concession without bidding and, according to Romero, in exchange for a bribe, under the government of Cristina Kirchner.

Sources close to Dietrich pointed out that Hidrovías "may be presented, but to participate in the call for tenders, it must comply with the requirements of Decree 1023 and the law on criminal liability of legal persons ".

They added that there are other interested operators, "both local and international, who operate today from other waterways".

According to the spokespersons, they will apply the guidelines of the anti-corruption office: the law on the criminal liability of legal persons excludes persons convicted of corruption and the prohibition to enter into contracts with the company. 39; national public administration that establishes Decree 1023, which in its article 28 does not allow the state to commit or convict for intentional crimes, for a period equal to twice the sentence, nor the persons prosecuted for crimes against property, against the national public administration, against the public or for crimes in the Inter-American Convention against Corruption.

For its part, the anti-corruption bureau has confirmed
THE NATION that it be supplemented by decrees 1030/16 and 1169/18, which provide as "ineligible" legal persons found guilty, with final conviction, for bribery or practices of transnational corruption, of a duration equal to twice the trouble.

It also excludes natural or legal persons from the lists of disabled persons by bribery of the World Bank or the Inter-American Development Bank.