ARGENTINA: Senators Stuff Their Pockets Amidst Widespread Poverty

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Sep 12 2000 (IPS) - The political crisis caused by the recent vote-buying scandal in the Argentine Senate has thrown into the headlines a question that this increasingly impoverished society has accepted up to now with resignation but as something natural: the extraordinary wealth of the nation’s lawmakers.

The net worth of legislators, now made public by a court ruling, stands in such sharp contrast to the soaring unemployment (15 percent) and underemployment, and the poverty affecting one- third of the population of 37 million, that a media commentator wryly wondered if the members of Congress were living in the same country as their voters.

“The fact that the assets of legislators are now made public opens up the possibility of investigating questions that are not public,” Monica Frade, with the non-governmental organisation Citizen Control, told IPS. She expressed scepticism, however, as to the extent to which the lawmakers’ sworn declarations of their assets were accurate and complete.

According to the public disclosure reports divulged in the past few days, most members of the Senate own six to 12 pieces of real estate, hold stocks and shares, and have at least three vehicles.

They also earn bulky expense allowances as parliamentarians and pensions for previously held public sector jobs, alongside their private incomes and professional fees.

Frade said the public disclosure reports “do not seem to reflect what many of the senators really own.” She added that the variation in the amounts that each lawmaker reported earning in parliament made the declarations “not very credible.”

A judge ordered the senators to make a sworn declaration of their assets as part of a legal investigation into payoffs reportedly shelled out in the Senate to accumulate the votes needed to secure passage of — widely protested — reforms of the labour code last April. In an unprecedented gesture, 47 of the 69 senators disclosed their reports to the public.

Without even counting the 22 senators who preferred not to make their net worth public, many of the cases shocked the public due to the stark contrast between the enormous wealth enjoyed by the legislators and the poverty plaguing the people in the provinces they represent.

Silvia Sapag, a senator of a local party in the south-central province of Neuquen, declared that she owned 12 houses and rural holdings worth nearly one million dollars, 30,000 dollars in jewelry and a car.

Senator Hector Maya, one of the legislators who has not yet revealed his sworn declaration, acknowledged that the affluence of the senators “stirs things up, given the present situation in Argentina,” but said it was important for the parliamentarians to be open and honest.

Maya said he had earned professional fees as a lawyer involved in lawsuits against public works.

Senators earn a salary of 5,000 dollars a month, as well as 4,200 dollars in travelling expenses and fuel allowance. In addition, congressional leaders earn an extra allowance, and some lawmakers even declared earning salaries as leaders of their political parties.

Senator Emilio Cantarero — one of those in the sights of the judicial inquiry — did not specify how many pieces of property he owned, but lumped them together in his declaration as “houses and rural holdings worth 2.33 million” dollars. He also reported owning five vehicles.

Cantarero represents the northern province of Salta, one of the poorest parts of this Southern Cone country.

In addition, the opposition Justice (Peronist) Party lawmaker declared 20,000 dollars a year in income from the state for unspecified “reserved expenses.” He is the only senator who admitted to receiving such income.

Cantarero’s name cropped up a week ago when he confessed to a daily ‘La Nacion’ reporter that he was one of the lawmakers who received a payoff in exchange for his vote on the labour reforms. He later recanted, however, and sued the journalist.

At least a dozen senators said they owned more than eight pieces of property, but few had less than six.

Among the vehicles reported — which legislators do not need for their work because the state assigns each of them a chauffeur- driven car — figure a number of four-wheel drive vehicles, jet- skis and four-wheelers.

All of the lawmakers reported that they continued to earn professional fees, interest income and dividends on their private investments, rent income, retirement pensions for several thousand dollars a month — for previous public sector employment — as well as other revenues that could be questioned.

Juan Melgarejo, of the ruling Alliance (made up of the Radical Civic Union and the left-leaning Frepaso), said he earned 200,000 dollars a year as a “merchant.”

Jose Maria Arechaga, also of the Alliance, said he took in 120,000 dollars a year as an auctioneer, while the Justice Party’s Ruben Pruyas — who reported owning seven houses — earns supplementary income from “a clinic.”

Rugero Petro, who belongs to a local party in the extreme southern province of Tierra del Fuego, has four dwellings worth 1.2 million dollars, 700,000 dollars worth of “household commodities” and 14 million dollars in stocks.

Untouched by the overall economic slump and by the woes plaguing agriculture in particular, things are going much better for the senators than for the rest of society, despite the fact that they do not dedicate all of their time to their business ventures. For example, Manuel Rodríguez, with the Justice Party, reported owning nearly one million dollars in rural holdings and farm machinery.

José Saez, with the Alliance, declared just 177,000 dollars worth of real estate. But he has five expensive cars and 1.1 million dollars in stocks, and receives “dividends” of unexplained origin as well as a comfortable pension.

One interesting case is Justice Party Senator Jorge Villaverde, who owns eight houses. He also receives 102 dollars a month as a “high school teacher” — income he did not lose despite the downsizing of the state and the crisis gripping the education sector.

The affluence of the senators partly explains the reaction of the public, which according to surveys is overwhelmingly convinced that the vote-buying did exist, but remains sceptical that the whole truth will ever come out.

According to opinion polls carried out in the past few weeks, more than 90 percent of respondents said they had no doubt that senators habitually received payoffs for their votes, while the same level of mistrust was expressed regarding parliamentarians of the ruling Alliance and the Justice Party.

A former correspondent with the U.S. magazine Newsweek, Martin Andersen, told the Buenos Aires daily ‘Pagina 12’ Monday that he was willing to testify in court in connection with another case of alleged bribery, one that involved the lower house of Congress.

The foreign journalist pointed out that last October he published an article reporting that Deputy Claudio Sebastiani admitted handing out envelopes containing a total of 25 million dollars to fellow members of the Chamber of Deputies to buy the votes needed for passage of a patent law favourable to Argentine laboratories.

Andersen said sources close to the case told him that another 15 million dollars was distributed among senators.

In the local legislature of the province of Buenos Aires, meanwhile, a probe has been launched to investigate an illegal 40- million dollar fund presumably used by local parliamentarians to finance their political activity.