Lawyer denounces that Indert does not deliver title to resident who won dispute against new minister and his wife

The appointment of Jacinto Santa María as the new head of the National Tourism Secretariat (Senatur) has raised serious concerns for Juan Báez, a resident of Mbatoví, as reported by ABC Color.

Báez, who won a legal dispute over 16 hectares of land in Paraguarí, is allegedly being denied his property title by the Rural Development and Land Institute (Indert). His lawyer, Daniel Fernández, views Santa María's appointment not as a technical selection but as a political maneuver to consolidate power and dispossess Báez, a man of limited means, in favor of government loyalists.

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The position that Mr. Santa María occupies today is – from my analysis – the product of political power readjustment. The Government is in the final stage of its term and is readjusting its loyalists. That is, a technical person was not appointed, a person with knowledge of the area was not appointed, but rather a loyalist was appointed.

Fernández argues that Santa María's new position strengthens a network aimed at subverting the law. The fear is that from this high-ranking position, Santa María can now more effectively pursue the dispossession attempt that began years ago, which previously involved the demolition of part of Báez's home through court orders later deemed arbitrary.

The core of the issue lies with Indert, where Báez was awarded the fiscal lot in December 2022. Despite paying the appraised value, the final title deed remains undelivered over three years later. Lawyer Fernández claims Indert president Francisco Ruiz Díaz is arbitrarily holding the document, labeling the situation as "institutionalized fraud" where the state has collected payment but refuses to finalize the transfer, seemingly to benefit the Santa María-González couple.

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He has it stored in one of his desk drawers.