Mauricio Macri has rented a plane for $ 200,000, but the government tells them that they will save 20 million pesos – 15/02/2019

Mauricio Macri It will arrive in New Delhi just minutes after midnight on Saturday – nearly 9 am Sunday, local time – after almost 23 hours of travel, with a brief stopover in the United Arab Emirates, where you will finally embark on a private flight rented specially by the government to cover travel in Asia. Have this plane available for a week This will cost the state about $ 200,000, but at the same time will save a millionaire.

What seems to be a contradiction is not. As it turns out, even though it remains a high figure compared to the price of a ticket on a tourist-clbad airline, presidential sources have argued that the president's decision to use a commercial plane for Dubai required about " a quarter "of the expense it would have cost to rent the plane to Buenos Aires, adding even the cost of the first-clbad Emirates tickets used by the President and Awada. "It was the cheapest offer we had. We saved 20 million pesos"They boasted of the Secretary General of the Presidency, Fernando de Andreis." The head of state did the same when he went to China and Japan: he went to Asia on board an airline and then went to borrowed a private flight.

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The plane in question is far from being a luxury, they say to the government. This is a model of Airbus Corporate Jet, without private room, as presidents usually need for their trips. "The idea was to have more seats so that the entire procession and equipment could be moved in the same plane and that there was no need to spend for others. flights, "said the sources. There is room for about 50 people.

The president, accompanied by the first lady, Juliana Awada, was forced to choose the rental of this plane so that it arrives at the scheduled time in the limited agenda that he has established On Tuesday, for example, he will travel from Delhi to Mumbai, where he will hold meetings with local CEOs and Argentine businessmen and, in the late afternoon, leave India to begin their visit to Vietnam. . "It was impossible to do the full tour and with so many meetings in the middle on a plane, but if it was for Mauricio, he did it: he insists on the issue of saving" he explains. Clarin an official who was part of the organization of the trip.

Indeed, for the moment, Macri has not been disturbed by the warnings sent by the government, the Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich, and the Military House itself: they ask him not to travel by plane because he can put his life at risk.

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"The security of the president and his family is a matter for the state and can not be delegated to foreign state agencies or private companies over which there is no control," said the confidential report. signed by Gerardo Milman, Bullrich's right hand man. In the letter to De Andreis and the Undersecretary of Presidential Affairs, Darío Nieto; the official pointed out "the need to use an exclusive plane for the President, to minimize the risks".

Among the arguments advanced by the text, there is one of force: the presidential guard can not be armed during the flight, which leaves them on an equal footing in front of a possible aggressor.

This is not the first warning to Macri, that in mid-last year, when the economic crisis forced the government to make a major adjustment to reach the zero deficit, he had decided to go ahead and pay for it. cancel his plan to buy a presidential plane. replace the Tango 01 which, because of its age, has a maintenance cost too high and does not have at the same time the autonomy of flight necessary for long journeys.

At that time, the government's priority was to save a figure close to $ 40 million and do not renew the presidential fleet, for which the maintenance in 2018, the state invested more than 120 million pesos.

This action has reignited an internal debate that the government has tried to minimize. Even last December, some have proposed repackaging the Tango, an idea rejected by Macri.

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Faced with the refusal to purchase, they recommended to "Chartear" or the rental of a commercial or private aircraft, with corroborated security features and a safety study on its crew, to purpose of a presidential use.

"He should have an exclusive plane to transfer him and his entourage on their next tour to India and Vietnam," they insisted, without much success.

"Security officials rightly claim that it's a risk, that it's a problem and that I'm no longer forced to do it, but renting a plane to Dubai and no in Buenos Aires allowed us to save 20 million pesos, and I preferred to preach For something to Boca, they told me 'Cartónero Báez', " Macri justified.