The Government announced the creation of an Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office to investigate public officials

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Presidential spokesperson Manuel Adorni confirmed this Thursday that Argentina will create a Prosecutor’s Office to investigate possible cases of corruption among public officials at both the national and provincial or municipal levels.

The Minister of Justice, Mariano Cúneo Libarona, “is going to immediately suggest to the Attorney General of the Nation, Eduardo Casal, the creation of a Prosecutor’s Office to investigate corruption of public officials,” especially in cases of “illicit enrichment and increases unjustified patrimonial losses,” he asserted.

“We are going to recover all property that is the product of crime,” the spokesperson said.

The announcement comes within the framework of reforms that the Government seeks to promote in Justice, such as the reform of the Penal Code and the lowering of the age of imputability.

Days ago, Cúneo Libarona stated that it has “in mind” the formation, under the scope of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, of a “special prosecutor’s office dedicated to corruption”, because its objective is to “pursue more than anyone” that type of crimes to say “enough to impunity”.

“I wouldn’t call it Conadep against corruption, but rather a special prosecutor’s office dedicated to corruption,” said Cúneo Libarona in statements to Rivadavia radio.

The reference is to the National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons (Conadep), which was created in 1983 by then-president Raúl Alfonsín to investigate human rights violations committed by the last civil-military dictatorship.

Adorni and the controversy over the “omnibus law” and the alleged changes in commissions

Regarding the “omnibus law” and the delays in its treatment, Adorni reiterated that the Government will not move “not a single centimeter” regarding what it intends to carry out with that project.

“There are no spurious negotiations within the framework of the ‘omnibus law’ for a very simple reason, we are not negotiating anything, we are talking,” said Adorni when asked about questions that appeared on social networks by some deputies about the final opinions agreed upon in commissions that were later supposedly changed.

He assured today that the Government did not make changes to the text of the majority opinion approved by the plenary session of committees in the Chamber of Deputies and stated that the Bases bill “in principle” will be debated in the chamber “the following week.”

One of those who complained was the Córdoba legislator Carlos Gutiérrez, who this Thursday said on his social network account “We found that modifications were made that no one knows who or how they were made, after a signed opinion.”

When we believed that in the chapter #biofuel The conditions had been achieved to reach an agreement that included all sectors, we found that modifications were made that no one knows who or how they were made, after a signed opinion.

— Carlos Gutierrez (@Dip_Gutierrez) January 25, 2024

“It is very serious and makes it clear that the only thing that matters to the National Government is revenue, lacking a productive development plan,” he said, among other issues.

Adorni stressed that there is no type of irregular negotiation either inside or outside Congress. “The treatment of this type of law does not go beyond any treatment that an initiative of this type has in Congress.”

On the agenda of Milei

President Javier Milei analyzed this Thursday with the cabinet the progress of the Bases law, which will be discussed in the Chamber of Deputies next week and which contains a variety of projects to deregulate aspects of the economy, in a meeting that took place in Casa Rosada, official sources reported.

The meeting of the head of state with his ministers and collaborators took place at 8:30 in the Eva Perón Room.

The agenda of Milei’s ministers

Meanwhile, according to what was reported to Télam, the Secretary of Communication and Press, Eduado Serenellini, will receive the authorities of the Argentine Circle of Agrarian Journalists (CAPA) at 2:30 p.m.; and at 3 p.m., together with the Minister of Economy, Luis Caputo, he will hold a working meeting with business chambers to analyze the Bases law and DNU 70/2023.

The head of the Infrastructure portfolio, Guillermo Ferraro, has a meeting scheduled at 3 p.m. with the governor of Jujuy, Carlos Sadir, to evaluate the works in the province.

For his part, the Minister of the Interior, Guillermo Francos, will meet with the United States ambassador, Marc Stanley, at 3:00 p.m.

In turn, the Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich, has scheduled a visit at 10:30 to the building of the National Directorate of the Federal Penitentiary Service (SPF).