July 22, 2022, 4:00 AM
July 22, 2022, 4:00 AM
The State Attorney General’s Office (PGE) has 173 items, including lawyers, communicators, economists and others. For payment of salaries, more than Bs 1.7 million is spent each month. Former opposition deputy Amílcar Barral questions the “excessive” hiring of jurists, including Evo Morales’ daughter, Evaliz Morales.
“There are 107 lawyers who provide services in the Attorney General’s Office, including the daughter of Evo Morales. We don’t know what they do, but they are making us lose billions in international lawsuits. And it’s not just Wilfredo Chávez’s fault, mainly Arce Zaconeta and Pablo Menacho’s, Barral wrote on his Twitter account in time to attach a 2019 report.
In the case of the daughter of the coca grower leader, the memorandum dated January 4, 2021 details a basic salary of Bs 11,362, an amount that, according to the former legislator, a recently graduated lawyer does not earn, as is the case of Morales Alvarado.
According to a recent review of the official website of the Comptroller, Evaliz made his affidavit in January 2021, but it was not updated again.
The salary scale of the Attorney General’s Office, according to ministerial resolution No. 012 of January 14 of this year, Bs 1,771,738 are paid each month for salaries. The annual amount is Bs 21,260,856, whose source of financing is “41-111 Transfers – General Treasury of the Nation”.
Barral recalled that the legal firm Alliance Abogados Asociados SC, of which former Minister of Justice Héctor Arce and former attorney Pablo Menacho are partners, was awarded the defense process of the Mutún Steel Company for an international arbitration case. The legislator points to them as responsible for the millionaire losses resulting from the nationalization.
According to the documents, the consortium of lawyers was hired by the state company under the modality of “contracting by exception” for more than Bs 2.5 million to defend the State in the Jindal Steel arbitration process.
Former Minister Yerko Núñez recalled that Arce and Menacho, in September 2015, lost two cases in favor of Quiborax, and Bolivia paid $48.6 million. Then in March 2018, the ICJ ruled that Chile has no obligation to negotiate with Bolivia.
