The Federal Justice ordered the Superintendence of Health Services to return to the UATRE the control of the Social Work of Rural Workers and reverses one of the most controversial measures of the Superintendency of Health Services. The ruling comes after detecting a series of irregularities in the steps to follow to resolve your intervention and, for this reason, will investigate officials of the Javier Milei government and national deputy Pablo Ansaloni for the crime of Illicit Association and Influence Peddling.
This way, the Social Work of Rural Workers and Stevedores (OSPRERA) will be controlled again by the Argentine Union of Rural Workers and Stevedores (UATRE).
In the ruling, they ask the Superintendent Gabriel Gonzalo Oriolor to submit the reports on which it is based to have made the decision to appoint a normalizer and, in the meantime, “the preventive suspension of the effects of the resolution dated 05/08/2024 RESOL-2024-1612-APN-SSS#MS” was ordered, with which the institution was intervened “letting the Superintendency of Health Services and every institutional and banking entity that corresponds to it, to refrain from executing it.”
This resolution occurs after the judicial presentation of the leader of the UATRE, Jose Voytenco, sponsored by the Legal Affairs Manager of the Osprera Lucas Eksiyan, with the advice of attorney Luciano Podestá, in which they warn of a series of irregularities in the administrative process. Among them, they explain, is that the Superintendency presented a series of requests that had to be answered before August 22, but that on August 5, just one business day after requesting them, it resolved the intervention.
UATRE: what the court ruling says
According to the ruling, the “critical” financial situation described by the Superintendency as an argument for the intervention does not match the “preliminary analysis of the accounting period closed on 12/31/2023” in which “a positive result of the accounting period is noted and with respect to the debts, it is noted that they have decreased.”
Besides, The Court points out that the review of the benefits situation detailed in the Resolution and its level of litigation do not coincide with reality either. In both cases, the figures presented are much higher than those that can actually be verified.
UATRE: how the investigation continues
For the alleged crime of failure to fulfill the duties of a public official, Oriolo himself and the heads of various technical areas who participated in the process will be investigated. Also against the National Deputy Pablo Ansaloni, “for illicit association and influence peddling, with the aim of illegally displacing the legitimate authorities of OSPRERA and taking control of the Social Work.”
Ansaloni, who is currently the leader of La Libertad Avanza, had a stint at OSPRERA and his administration ended with a complaint for alleged multimillion-dollar fraud by the health institution.
The Government’s response
In a statement released hours later, the Superintendency of Health Services confirmed the intervention of the social work and argued that “since the beginning of the year, The body once again fulfilled its primary function which is to supervise the Health Insurance Agents.”
“In this framework, it is moved forward with an audit of the social work in question that discovered serious irregularities product of an alarming financial situation, to such an extent that the Judge himself, through the intervenor appointed by him, requested 3.35 billion pesos in October 2023, an amount that he reported on the last business day of the previous presidential administration, at the same time that the social work’s benefit debt increased,” he said.
He also stated that in his ruling, it was “the judge himself who allowed the provisional administration appointed by him to be established – despite the financial crisis of the entity – million-dollar salaries equivalent to 25 times what an average rural laborer earns”. The published values are: president, $14,005,643; vice president, $12,178,820; treasurer, $12,178,820; secretary of minutes, $12,178,820; judicial observer, $11,397,819, legal manager, $8,592,464.
“The judge in charge of the case is prejudging considering the statements of the complainants as true, without having investigated anything. Furthermore, it is disturbing that in the framework of a criminal investigation, which is finished, the following has been carried out: invalidate a presidential decree, an act that deserves a deeper and more well-founded legal analysis“, he added.
Finally, he said that “The judge himself introduced references to a union disputewhere one of the complainants is an interested party” and that “this situation could be interpreted as taking sides in internal union conflicts, which reveals the perception of impartiality which must govern all judicial proceedings.”
“From the Superintendency of Health Services we continue working to reorganize the health system by guaranteeing free competition and freedom of choice for beneficiaries,” he concluded.
Source: Ambito
