In the hours following the expulsion of Matías Kulfas from the Ministry of Productive Development – replaced by Daniel Scioli- They promise to be for the Government a lot of action, almost all of it associated with internal political tension and the challenges that lie ahead if it wants to unite the space behind common objectives for all parts of the Front for All. This Monday, Kulfas will meet briefly with President Alberto Fernández to present his resignation and clarify again that he did not make any complaint of irregularities in the Néstor Kirchner gas pipeline tender, but “a political response to a political criticism” of the vice president, Christina Fernandez.
Just when the opposition of Together for Change clung to the controversial off the record to press for responses to alleged bids tailored to Techint. The President will also appear with the Minister of Economy, Martín Guzmán, with whom he will present the bill that proposes a tax on unexpected income. In the Executive Power, they hope that this initiative, presented as generating a “greater distribution of income” will help generate a better climate within the Front of All.
In parallel, the last pure albertista with control of power that remains for the president, the Minister of Economy, Martín Guzmán, will face to face the two CEOs who motivated CFK’s phrase of the need not to sit down to negotiate ” as friends” with the sectors of economic power. It will be this Tuesday within the framework of the annual convention of the Argentine Business Association (AEA).
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The offs and the complaints
Last Saturday at noon, as soon as CFK’s message against an off-line filtered by Productive Development in which there was criticism of her was published on Twitter, Kulfas called the President by phone and made his resignation available. There he clarified that he did not denounce anything in particular, but rather gave a political response to what he understood was an excessive criticism of the vice president for the Kirchner gas pipeline tenders, papers signed by the officials who respond directly to the president in the former Enarsa.
Fernández asked her to wait, not to say anything, and a while later she expressed her support for the vice president on Twitter, which meant accepting her resignation. Kulfas and the President did not speak again later and they will only do so this Monday when he formalizes his resignation prior to Fernandez embarking on Los Angeles to participate in the Summit of the Americas.
“The complaints are made in the Justice, he did not and will not make any complaint,” sources who frequent the former minister told, and admit that there is a difference between what Kulfas declared on the subject before the microphones of AM 750, a political challenge to CFK’s statements, and what was later leaked in a WhatsApp message from the portfolio: a more virulent response to the vice president who also slipped that in the pipeline tender, Techint had been favored over another company that had submitted an offer of equal quality at a lower price. Along these lines, Together asked the Government for detailed reports on that tender and the future infrastructure work. Kulfas is not responsible for the final wording of this text, although they admit to the Government that it came from their computer and that it was a serious mistake.
The relationship with Laminados Industriales SA, the SME that could supposedly provide plates without import costs, was not completely clarified, although in the sector they assure that the firm does not have the capacity to produce the volume and quality that the pipeline requires. That name comes, moreover, only a week after Kulfas was there inaugurating the return to production of ship plate.
Due to this coincidence, the Industrial Laminates plant in Villa Constitución, Santa Fe, was inaugurated by Cristina Kirchner in 2012, accompanied by the then Minister of Health, Juan Manzur, and former Governor Antonio Bonfatti. The firm is not a national SME but a subsidiary of the Beltrame Group, with Italian capital. Yesterday, Laminados Industriales ratified that it currently does not produce “API” quality sheet metal suitable for gas pipelines, nor is it suitable for 36-inch diameter pipes and that we estimate that by the end of 2022 the qualification process to produce API sheets will begin, which will serve to pipes up to 30 inches in diameter.
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“Friends” have their own name
In second-order of arrival, but no less important than the issue of handling the pen, the vice president’s phrase about the government negotiating with CEOs as if they were “friends” was generated as a result of two specific cases. Both were alerted by Page I 12 weeks ago: the first was the increase in metallurgy prices manufactured by Techint, Paolo Rocca’s company, who had eaten with Fernández in Olivos. The second, was the 10 percent rise in prices that Arcor passed on to large supermarkets hours after the President and the Minister of Economy, Martín Guzmán, had dinner with the owner of the company, Luis Pagani, at the same table they had shared with Rocca. A meeting that, precisely, had been conceived to ask the Cordovan businessman for support in the fight against inflation.
In the CFK environment, they confirmed that he was referring to those two businessmen, but that he avoided making names of his own because he worked on a “careful” speech that sought not to overload the ink of the internal government. “Either they take your time, or you are fixing it, one of the two”, someone who frequents the leader and knows her way of thinking described to this newspaper. She thus described what she conjectures after seeing the results of those meetings with Rocca and Pagani. In short, kindness for nothing, or rather in exchange for more tensions and price increases, while the government continues to release scarce dollars to large companies.
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A ring for Guzmán
In this context, the “friends” referred to by CFK will meet face to face in the next few hours with Guzmán, who coincidentally was not part of Fernández’s two meetings with businessmen. On Tuesday, at the Hotel Sheraton de Retiro, the AEA will put together a powerful act to complain about the Government, and the minister will be the official representative. In general, the Presidents go, but Fernández will be in the United States at the Summit and he asked his right-hand man to replace him. He will have to be protected, with a helmet or armor, and he will be tested there if the Government really has a change of vision with the sectors of power. Even more so after the vice’s message on Friday.
AEA has already started: when Guzmán still did not know if he would attend the event, they confirmed it via email to the press. In that same document, speeches from the entity’s top staff were whitewashed. Rocca, Pagani, Héctor Magnetto (Clarín), Alfredo Coto and Federico Braun (La Anónima) will speak . According to what this newspaper learned, in the last hours, it was Magnetto who coordinated the presentations, which are expected to be harsh with the Government with a specific axis: the failure in the fight against inflation. That day, all eyes will be on how another of the ministers questioned by Kirchnerism will react. Disputing or confirming the nicknames that the vice has given to that relationship.
