La Plata, November 27, 2025 – Total News Agency-TNA-The Astillero Río Santiago is once again embroiled in an administrative scandal that fully compromises the provincial administration. The Court of Accounts approved the 2023 balance sheet but applied sanctions and warned of the existence of persistent structural flaws. Public exposure falls especially on Padín and Ibendahl, who continue to hold central roles. The Court, however, was categorical: the urgency was a consequence of poor planning, not of exceptional circumstances. The new ruling comes as another case of enormous impact shakes the body: the order to return more than 70 million pesos for apocryphal contracts that involved the former president of the Shipyard during the Scioli administration, the Secretary of the Presidency, the general manager, and the salary coordinator. For the Axel Kicillof administration, the pressure increases: it will have to explain why it transferred Padín to one of the most sensitive areas of the provincial control system while the Court of Accounts was pointing to his administrative performance as irregular and questioning practices that today compromise the Astillero Río Santiago. The conclusions not only describe procedural failures but also a chain of decisions that, according to the Court, violated current regulations and affected the transparency of public spending. Padín—transferred in March 2024 by the provincial government to the General Accounting Office, a key area in administrative control—received a 'warning,' the sanction provided for in Article 16 of Law 10.869. That maneuver, perpetrated between 2012 and 2013, is considered one of the most serious cases of administrative corruption detected in the recent history of the Shipyard. The temporal coincidence of both rulings—one for fraud and another for serious irregularities in purchases—again calls into question the solidity of internal control and the chain of political responsibilities. Simultaneously with a historic ruling that forces former officials of the Daniel Scioli government to return more than 70 million pesos for apocryphal contracts, another resolution from the Honorable Court of Accounts (HTC) exposed serious irregularities in the organization's purchases during 2023 and placed two key men supported by Axel Kicillof under scrutiny: Eduardo Luis Padín and Gonzalo Ariel Horacio Ibendahl. The HTC's ruling confirms that both officials incurred in contract splitting and in the total absence of the annual purchase plan, a legal obligation for all decentralized entities covered by the provincial budget law, as reported by Realpolitik. The Court of Accounts emphasized that the official did not even present the 2023 annual procurement plan, a basic instrument to order, schedule, and make transparent the use of public funds. Despite that precedent, far from sanctioning him, the Kicillof administration later placed him in a strategic area linked to the rendering and follow-up of public spending. Ibendahl, for his part, was held responsible for not guaranteeing that the purchases complied with the legal procedures. The Court detailed that the purchases made under his responsibility were executed through multiple payment orders for similar amounts, aimed at acquiring different goods but processed outside the corresponding procedures for amount and periodicity. Between January and February 2023, three air conditioner acquisitions for 2.9 million pesos and three other printer purchases between March and May for 4.3 million were registered, all under the 'Conformed Invoice' modality. The officials attempted to justify these operations by alleging urgencies, operational needs, stock shortages, and Padín's health problems. The report ruled out any attempt to justify that omission based on the 'business-type organization' of the Shipyard, recalling that the regulation applies strictly to all entities included in the budget law. The audit also identified repeated and concentrated purchases from a single supplier, Takeprofit SAS—property of Lisandro Téllez. For the body, these practices constituted a clear presumption of splitting, a figure defined in Article 6 of Law 13.981. The audit also verified that Padín pressured in June 2023 to be made a permanent employee while his performance was being evaluated by the control body.
