Convergencia Research, Consultoría especializada en Latinoamérica y Caribe
Tuesday, June 23, 2020

Complaints, raids and suspicions in Uruguay

Antel and Ursec adapt to the "new normal" with drastic changes in leadership

The public company and the telecommunications regulator are going through troubled days, which came from the hand of the new government of Lacalle Pou. How were the three hottest months in the country?

The first semester of 2020 brought profound changes for the telecommunications sector in Uruguay. In just three months, Antel and the Communications Services Regulatory Unit (Ursec, in Spanish) had new presidents -in the public company, two different-, and judicial processes, while they had to respond to the necessary actions to combat, from the place that corresponds to each one, the spread of the coronavirus in the country.

On March 1, Luis Alberto Lacalle Pou, from the National Party, took over as President of Uruguay. Only 12 days later, the first four positive Covid-19 cases were detected in the country, and on that same day decreed the health emergency.

At the end of March, the first tokens of the political board began to be moved with the designations against the clock of presidencies and boards of the entities of the state sphere. By 31 votes, the Chamber of Senators approved sooner rather than later, the terms for future presidents of public companies and decentralized services, including Guillermo Iglesias, who assumed Antel’s presidency replacing Andrés Tolosa.

In the interim, on April 13, Mercedes Aramendía was appointed as president of the Ursec Board of Directors. The new head is an expert professor, researcher and lawyer in telecommunications and for seven years she worked at Telefónica Uruguay, where her last position was head of Institutional Relations.

Antel employees. The problems started at the beginning of May, with a resolution by Iglesias that gave the go-ahead for the entry of some 857 people to Antel's official staff, hired under the public service and after three years of working in the entity. On May 19, Lacalle Pou backed down with the directive and demanded the resignation of Iglesias, who left office.

The following day Gustavo Delgado, director of Antel and representative of the National Party in the public company, also resigned. From the Government they maintained that it was not the opportune moment to incorporate employees, due to the difficult economic context derived from the health emergency. However, the union insisted that budgeting did not imply any expense for the State, since workers had been under a public service contract for three years, so they were already public officials.

The Government's intention would be not to increase the number of public employees of any entity, a reason that would be behind these drastic measures. According to balances published on its official website, as of December 2019 Antel had 722 fewer employees than it had in December 2015, and if 2014 is contemplated, it stretches to 831. By December 2019, the total officials reached 6,102.

Last week Gabriel Gurméndez was appointed to head the Antel, after holding that position between 2002 and 2004. He had previously served on the board, between 1990 and 1993.

Raids on Ursec. While Antel defined who could take charge of the reins of one of the most prosperous and profitable companies in the country, on June 1 a former Ursec official entered the regulator's headquarters in Montevideo. At 11:02 that morning he entered the General Secretariat, from where he left at 11:26. Then, he returned at 11:48, although this time with a bag, leaving at 12:24, with documents in hand. What happened within the Secretariat was not recorded since there are no security cameras (as in the rest of the building), but he was seen by an official of the agency, who that same day notified the new president, Mercedes Aramendía.

At that time found that in a shredding machine of the General Secretariat there were remains of destroyed documentation, which was collected and delivered as evidence of the complaint, filed with the Office of the Attorney General of the Nation.

The accused is an official of the Judiciary who until April 13 was on a commission pass at Ursec, at the request of the previous president of the organization, Gabriel Lombide, performing various tasks, mainly in the General Secretariat. Two days after leaving the institution, on April 15, he sent an email to the Human Resources office in which he reported that he had been reinstated to the Judiciary, so his commissions pass ceased.

The evidence in the possession of the Prosecutor's Office indicates that the official entered the office of the secretary of Nicolás Cendoya, director of the agency representing the Frente Amplio until a few days ago. Then he left the office and minutes later he returned with a secretary: later both of them left, and the secretary was holding a green folder, which today the Justice seeks through mass searches, as of June 8. That same day, Pablo Siris became part of the URSEC board of directors, accompanied by Gustavo Delgado, who a few days ago left Antel.

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