MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Prosecutor reviewing ex-governor Kirchner Santa Cruz oil funds

Where is the rest of the money deposited in Swiss banks?

An Argentine prosecutor has requested former president Nestor Kirchner be summoned to declare on alleged irregular handling of funds belonging to the provincial government of Santa Cruz, which he ruled during eleven years

According to the Argentine press the petition was sent last February 19 by prosecutor Andres Vivanco to the magistrate in the case Santiago Lozada, a case which also involves three other former oil rich Santa Cruz governors. While governor of his province, (1991 to 2003) Kirchner transferred 500 million US dollars from the Santa Cruz Treasury to a Swiss bank, which at the moment was highly criticized by the federal government and other political forces. The funds originally were handed to Santa Cruz in 1993 by Buenos Aires following a wrongly calculated redistribution of oil royalties. The money between 1995 and 2001 was deposited in different Swiss banks, a decision that finally was taken before a court of justice. However an original criminal case against Mr. Kirchner for alleged irregularities in the management of those funds, following on a claim presented by a group of solicitors, was finally thrown out by magistrate Lozada in 2005. However Prosecutor Vivanco presented a new claim geared to investigate "all those people responsible for the custody, administration and accounting and financial management of those funds between 2003 and 2006". The new case therefore involves Mr. Kirchner and his three crony successors as governors in Santa Cruz, Hector Icazurriaga, Sergio Acevedo and Carlos Sancho for the "alleged crime of improper handling of public funds, embezzlement and non fulfillment of public servants' duties" The prosecution also includes requests of information and data from international financial institutions such as Morgan Stanley, regarding bank accounts opened in Luxembourg and the Swiss banks Credit Suisse and UBS. According to Vivanco there was a special interest in Santa Cruz "in having the commissions specifically named for the control and investment of the oil royalties' funds to be non operational, as well as not to allow the citizenship to express a view on how to invest such funds". Therefore, "it can be argued that all financial operations relating to those funds are absolutely void of all legality", said prosecutor Vivanco according to the Buenos Aires press. Kirchner, who left office last December when her wife Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner was elected president, had promised in 2005 to repatriate the Santa Cruz funds and at the time, Governor Sergio Acevedo signed a decree ordering the return of the money deposited in Switzerland. At that moment the funds added to 507 million US dollars plus interests, 521 million, which currently could be close to 533 million US dollars. Opposition groups in Congress keep claiming that even when part of the funds effectively returned to the country, the former president promise remains largely unfulfilled.