Government to shut down disability agency amid bribe accusations scandal

The government has decided to shut down the National Disability Agency (ANDIS, by its Spanish acronym) and transfer its duties to the health ministry, on the grounds that it will solve bureaucracy and mismanagement issues. The move comes amid an ongoing scandal involving million-dollar bribe accusations within the agency, which the government did not mention while announcing the decision. “The ANDIS will cease to exist as we know it,” said Chief of Staff and presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni during a press conference on Tuesday. He clarified that there will be no cuts to the pensions the agency pays to people with disabilities. The bribes scandal within the agency has been rocking the government throughout the year. It began in August with the leak of several audios attributed to former ANDIS head Diego Spagnuolo, where he allegedly said that Secretary General Karina Milei had been taking bribes from medical and pharmaceutical companies in exchange for state contracts.  The audios — which according to Spagnuolo are fake — also mention other high-hierarchy government officials, who still remain in their positions, along with Karina Milei. The government has outright denied the accusations. Spagnuolo was fired from the agency after the audio leak. He and other public officials are being investigated by the judiciary. ANDIS The agency operated as an independent organization within the health ministry structure, which gave it autonomy to manage its resources. It was created in 2017 with the goal of coordinating public policies regarding disability. Adorni said that, over the years, ANDIS “accumulated tons of layers of bureaucracy, administrative mismanagement and actions that are not compatible with a transparent policy.” Some of the irregularities the government discovered during its audits, according to Adorni, were “relatives of deceased people who continued to receive their pensions” and “medics who approved paperwork without clinical justification,” among other things. He did not mention the bribery accusations. In a statement, the government said they reduced the sector’s hierarchy positions by half and that the goal of the move is to protect public resources and guarantee public policies for disabled people are carried out effectively and transparently. Less funds Last week, Congress approved the 2026 budget bill that had been filed by the government, which reduced funding for disability pensions by 10%.  The original bill also proposed overturning a law that declared an emergency in the disability sector and granted it funds, but lawmakers rejected that section. Earlier this year, Milei had vetoed that law, but Congress upheld it. The law remains in effect, although the government has not yet granted the funds for it. “They want to eliminate the ANDIS so they can cover the tracks of the bribes in the disability sector,” said Peronist deputy Germán Martínez in an X post. “This is not administrative restructuring. It is an impunity plan.” “After stealing its budget, the government decided to shut down the ANDIS,” left-wing Buenos Aires City lawmaker Gabriel Solano wrote on X. “They left people with disabilities and those who take care of them adrift.” The investigation continues The bribery accusations reached some of the highest-ranking officials in the government, like President Javier Milei’s sister Karina Milei, as well as her right-hand man, Eduardo “Lule” Menem, and his cousin, the head of the lower house Martín Menem.  However, the accusations bled down from there to several members of the government and businesspeople who, until now, were mostly unknown to the public. Two people currently in the limelight are businessman Miguel Ángel Calvete and his daughter, Ornella, who led a directorate in the economy ministry until she resigned in mid-November. The judiciary believes that Miguel Ángel Calvete was Spagnuolo’s right-hand man within the ANDIS, acting as a sort of informal director of the agency. His name came up after an analysis of Spaguolo’s phone. Federal judge Sebastián Casanello is also investigating Ornella Calvete after an analysis of her father’s phone found messages of them talking about negotiations with medical companies. Her apartment was raided and police found US$700,000 that were hidden. She was formally accused as part of the corruption investigation.  She refused to testify, but recently filed a letter before the judiciary where she said she was aware that her father had left money in the apartment — owned by him — when she moved in, but not the total amount. She said the money belongs to INDECOMM, one of the companies that apparently were benefitting from the informal payments system. She also said comments she left on her father’s phone about paying a 3% bribe to Karina Milei were only “a joke” that was part of a private conversation. Miguel Ángel Calvete is currently serving a four years jail sentence after being convicted of leading an organization that exploited women by renting apartments for them to engage in prostitution, in exchange for payments well above market prices, between June 2015 and December 2016.