Macri tells Argentina's business leaders: 'I won’t defend the corrupt'

The ‘notebooks’ scandal followed the business sector to it annual Argentine Business Association (AEA) summit this week, where President Mauricio Macri urged leaders to move toward greater transparency in their respective sectors.

“I do not plan to mortgage my government or the future of Argentina to defend somebody acting outside of the law”, Macri said.

“The government is doing everything it can to ensure transparency and institutionalism”, he added, speaking to 150 of Argentina’s top business leaders, whose activities account for 70 percent of total private economic activity in the country.

“Today as a society we have started to speak clearly, we have started to put real problems on the table instead of denying them or looking for magic solutions, and most of all by not spending State resources recklessly”, the head of state charged, in clear reference to his predecessors in the Néstor and Cristina Kirchner admininstrations.

In attendance at the AEA summit were Techint Group CEO Paolo Rocca and Roggio Group boss Aldo Roggio, both of whom have secured plea bargains in the “notebooks” investigation currently being pursued by Federal Judge Claudio Bonadio.

Testifying before Bonadio at Comodoro Py courthouses this week, Roggio admitted to paying bribes to disgraced former Transport secretary Ricardo Jaime who is spending time behind bars for his role in the corruption and neglicence tied to the fatal 2012 Once train tragedy.

IMPORTANT BACKING

President Macri enjoys widespread support in the business community at a crucial time for the president as he begins loading his multi-billion-dollar austerity plans toward the 2019 general and presidential elections.

A Management & Fit poll on Tuesday found that Macri faces a 62.5-percent disapproval rating, twice as much as his approval rating at 31.5 percent.

The poll also found that 70.8 percent of Argentine consider themselves worse off or much worse off in 2018 than last year.
Inflation was the principal concern among those polled at 21.6 percent with corruption coming in second at 15.5 percent.

-TIMES