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- Paper Pulp Mills - Uruguay
- Corporate Accountability and Human Rights
- Climate Change and Human Rights
CLAIMS AGAINST FORMER ARGENTINE ENVIRONMENT SECRETARY ROMINA PICOLOTTI
THROWN OUT OF COURT IN FIRST ROUND OF HEARINGS
19th February, 2010, Cordoba. In a first round of hearings, a federal judge ruled today that evidence presented by the federal prosecutor alleging misappropriation of funds by former Cordoba Mayor Luis Juez, which had been provided for environmental works by former Environment Secretary Romina Picolotti, have no merit.
Accusations circulated in 2007 by Clarín, one of Latin America’s largest media empires, of fraud and mismanagement in the National Environment Secretariat, run at the time by Romina Picolotti, a prize-wining environmental and human rights advocate now presiding the Center for Human Rights and Environment in Argentina. As Environment Secretary, Picolotti had been on a campaign to reign in corporate misconduct for environmental norms violations, focusing her efforts on some of Argentina’s most contaminated sites, particularly in the Riachuelo River Basin in Buenos Aires Province as well as a crackdown on Argentina’s most contaminating paper and pulp mills.
Clarín’s pulp mill Papel Prensa located in San Pedro, in Buenos Aires Province, is well known to be Argentina’s largest paper mill, but also its’ worst and most contaminating. Papel Prensa is an eye sore in Argentina’s claim against Uruguay at the International Court of Justice, for allowing the installation of a controversial mega pulp mill on the river border between the countries.
Picolotti’s team of environmental compliance task force had entered the Papel Prensa factory against much resistance from executives and its’ Board of Directors, and was on the verge of ordering a total shut down when the story of alleged mismanagement broke. Clarín’s claims resulted in a series of complaints against Picolotti filed by opposition party members which are still under investigation.
The Environment Secretariat before Picolotti’s administration at the time had a single office building, a scant 350 employees to cover the entire country (by comparison EPA in the USA has 10 regional offices and some 18,000 staff), while the Environment Secretariat’s control and compliance team for all federal territory had a single small room, three outdated computers, one vehicle and 8 employees, three of which were support staff. Picolotti served as Secretary of Environment between 2006 and 2008 under two successive administrations, during which time the compliance and enforcement functions of the federal government grew exponentially. Picolotti and her new compliance team consisting of several hundred newly trained and equipped inspectors carried out over 8500 inspections in less than two years during her nearly three-year run as Environment Secretary. She fined hundreds of companies and ordered temporary closures for environmental norms violations to companies like Shell, Danone, Bridgstone-Firestone, Petrobras, and others. She resigned in December of 2008 following differences over a presidential veto of a glacier protection law that was unanimously passed in Congress.
The accusations relating to Cordoba mayor Juez, centered on a financial transfer for some US$160,000 from the Environment Secretariat to the city for environmental works (waste site cleanups and city park clean up and renovations). Allegations filed days before provincial elections claimed that the funds had been used to finance Juez’s campaign for governor. Juez says the denunciations were a smear campaign to discredit his candidacy in the gubernatorial race, which he subsequently lost by one of the most controversial and closest margins ever in local elections.
Luis Juez recently refused to be interrogated by the judge in the Cordoba case, demanding that all charges should be dropped. He also attacked the prosecutor, Marijuan (which is also involved in the cases brought against Picolotti’s by the opposition resulting from the Clarin accusations), suggesting that he was at the service of the opposition and that he should be removed.
The judge dropped charges against Juez today for lack of merit informing the prosecutor that he needs evidence if he wishes to prosecute.
For More Information:
Jorge Daniel Taillant
jdtaillant@gmail.com
