Kirchner testifies in corruption probe

Argentina’s former president Cristina Kirchner yesterday appeared before a judge investigating allegations her government steered public works contracts to a businessman close to her.
Kirchner said she was being persecuted politically and called for an audit of all public works contracts under both her government and that of her successor Mauricio Macri.
“We want an in-depth investigation, without arbitrariness or political calculation, of whether there was corruption in public works during the 12-and-a-half years of our government,” she said on social media.
Kirchner was the first of 17 people summoned by federal judge Julian Ercolini to give statements in the illicit enrichment case of Lazaro Baez, a businessman close to Kirchner and her late husband Nestor Kirchner, who preceded her as president.
The complaint filed by prosecutors alleges that Kirchner was part of a “criminal organisation” with other officials working to benefit Baez, who repaid the former president by renting rooms in hotels owned by the Kirchner family in the southern province of Santa Cruz.
Macri, a conservative who became president in December, alluded to the public works investigation yesterday at the inauguration of a project in Buenos Aires.
“Public works should never again be synonymous with corruption, as we see in the quantity of these open cases,” he said.
“We want to know what happened. We all want there to be no more impunity,” he said.
Kirchner said that while she was testifying in the Baez case, another judge, Claudio Bonaldo, ordered a search of her house in Rio Gallegos, Santa Cruz.
Bonaldo is leading another corruption investigation involving currency operations by the central bank during Kirchner’s government.