Alberto Fernández defended himself after being charged in the insurance scandal: "This is not a business deal".

Hours after being charged in the case that investigates the insurance scandal revealed by Clarín this Sunday, Alberto Fernández came out this Thursday to defend himself.

"I have not stolen anything and I have not participated in any deal or authorized any deal. And this is not a business deal", said the former president about the scheme of intermediaries -among them Héctor Martínez Sosa, his friend and husband of his historic secretary- who charged millionaire commissions in life insurance policies of government agencies.

Fernandez accepted the accusation of the prosecutor Ramiro Gonzalez. " It seems reasonable to me, the concept of imputation is that it should be investigated", she explained as if it were one of her law classes. But he once again launched one of the personal assessments that have become his slogan. "I make honesty a cult. I know that I am a public man and I am speaking to explain to the people", said Fernandez, in an interview with La Red radio station.

The former president usually boasts of -until now- not having been involved in corruption cases, a differentiation that has had repercussions as an attempt to contrast himself with Cristina Kirchner.

"They are affecting many good people", he clarified about the names that have emerged as beneficiaries. Martínez Sosa, the husband of his secretary María Cantero, for example, would have managed ANSeS policies before Nación Seguros for more than 20 billion pesos.

"Do not ask me about Martínez Sosa because I have never in my life talked to him about his insurance policies", answered the former President about the broker who, as it was known, visited him at the Quinta de Olivos and with whom he shared celebrations.

"He knows me, he knows that if he had asked me for something like that I would tell him 'Héctor, you can't ask me for this and that's it'," he added. This Wednesday, he had not been so blunt in this defense with his secretary, Martínez Sosa's wife.

The former president, who is in Buenos Aires after a two-month stay in Spain, where his wife and youngest son currently live, said that he did not take "not even an eraser from the State" when he left office.

"Go in and look in my Sworn Statement if anything has changed since the day I was president, look among my family if anyone got rich or if there is a front man I have who has benefited. I do not do those things", he insisted.

What explanation did Alberto Fernández give about the insurance contracting in the ANSES?

Meanwhile, Fernández gave his explanation on the contracting of life insurance by the ANSeS to Nación Seguros.

He recalled that in Argentina, as in the rest of the world, when one takes out a loan, the contracting of a life insurance policy is included as administrative expenses. "Banks, or anyone who grants a loan, always take out a life insurance policy in case the borrower dies and leaves the loan unpaid. That risk is taken by an insurance company and the bank does not have it. The bank is always guaranteed to collect, even if the debtor dies", he said.

"ANSeS - he continued - has been giving credits to retirees, to people with AUH, since 2012. It was always assured by Nación Seguros. In 2018 Nación Seguros says to have lost a lot of money, rightly so, with these insurances and therefore did not want to continue insuring them," he detailed.

In that sense, he recalled that that year and after the insurance company of Banco Nación refused to continue granting insurance to the agency, ANSeS went on to "self-insure". "It generated enormous problems for ANSeS because it is not prepared for that. It had claims from the Audit Office to stop insuring the loans it was granting," he said.

For this reason, he argued, in 2021 he signed a decree "to end the insurance business in the State". "And I say in that norm that all the State's assets and risks are insured with Nación Seguros and that this is done directly, without intermediaries," he said. A diametrically opposite narrative, because the public bank's insurer sought managers who charged commissions of up to 17%.

Fernandez continued his narrative of what he intended to do with the questioned decree he issued in pandemic. "In this way, what did I end up with? With the little business that some people could do. I would appoint you as director of a department and you could call an insurance producer and arrange for him to insure all the assets of that department. This way, that is over; everyone is obliged to pay the insurance premium to the State and there is no intermediation", he said as an explanation.

He clarified that the decree signed by him "went everywhere, through the Superintendence of Insurance, Superintendence of Labor Risk, through the Ministry of Economy, through the Secretariat of Budget, through the Secretariat of Legal and Technical". "It was not an invention of mine between cock and midnight", he insisted, adding bureaucratic rollers.

DS