PAMI: Milei’s government faces a public fund diversion scandal to finance its party

With an annual budget that is around five billion pesos (about 4.4 billion dollars), the National Institute of Social Services for Retirees and Pensioners, better known as Pami, is one of the large boxes of the Argentine State. The management of the agency by the government of Javier Milei is involved in a growing scandal of complaints filed before the judicial courts by officials appointed by the “libertarian” administration itself. In at least five provinces in the country, the accusations are coincident: the Freedom Authorities progresses (lla) demanded that PAMI officials a portion of their salaries to finance the party of President Ultra. The Casa Rosada said Monday not having “any kind of responsibility” in the facts.

“You have to give me a million pesos in return.” The official deputy Viviana Aguirre denounced to have received that instruction when last year was appointed in the direction of the PAMI in the city of La Plata, capital of the province of Buenos Aires. In a judicial complaint, he pointed out with the name and surname against the party referents who claimed contributions “5% onwards, according to the salary.” The legislator said that similar irregularities occur in other state agencies, such as the National Social Security Administration (ANSES). In statements to local media, she was disappointed with Milei and her promise to “end the caste.”

In the province of Misiones, located in the Argentine Northeast, a dozen PAMI officials and the ANSES addressed a note to the president of Lla in the district to express their “disagreement with the payment order of 10% of the salaries that officials perceive as responsible for said agencies to be deposited in a particular account”. The letter concludes: “We ask you to reimburse the money paid (…) and desist from such work.” The case is already in the hands of justice, as well as that raised in Buenos Aires. In addition, different courts investigate complaints of the same tenor in the provinces of Santa Cruz, La Pampa and El Chaco.

In the National Congress, the opposition requested that the director of the PAMI, Esteban Leguízamo, and the Minister of Health, Mario Lugones, “to inform about the situation of the public complaints of different PAMI officials of different jurisdictions of the country be cited,” according to a project signed by the socialist deputy Monica Fein.

Although the scandal has been growing for several days, only this Monday the Milei government spoke on the subject. “We have absolutely nothing to do,” said the president’s spokesman, Manuel Adorni. “If there is anything else to say, justice has to say. We have nothing to clarify about situations that have not existed or that we have not had any responsibility,” he separated.

The defense of the Casa Rosada was given within the framework of another complaint of corruption in the PAMI: the alleged purchase with overpricing, through a rigged tender, of adult diapers, an operation for 460 million dollars. The executive’s response consisted of the announcement of a new modality of home delivery for older people he would be, said Adorni, “a saving of 5,000 million pesos per year.”

Irregularities and drenches in PAMI are a especially sensitive issue in Argentina. The agency is responsible for health benefits for retirees and pensioners, one of the sectors of the population most affected by the cut that Milei’s chainsaw has been carrying out on public spending.