September 21, 2022, 4:43 PM
September 21, 2022, 4:43 PM
Mario Centellas, Secretary of Administration and Finance of the Mayor’s Office, declared this Wednesday as a witness for the investigation that is being carried out around the alleged sale of contracts from the Mayor’s Office and revealed that the former Secretary of Human Development, Teresa Seferina Góngora Melgar, hired her son, Mauricio Pinto Góngora, to work with her.
The municipal official gave his testimony before the prosecutor Rose María Barrientos of the Anticorruption unit, which is within the facilities of the Departmental Prosecutor’s Office of the second ring. At the end of her statement, she spoke to the media and said that he “has nothing to do with it and that the case is in the hands of Justice”.
Centellas specified that Mauricio Pinto was a municipal official last year and that he carried out his functions during the period in which his mother was Secretary of Human Development of the Santa Cruz Mayor’s Office.
“All the secretariess they have the possibility of recruiting people they trust, surely she (Teresa Góngora) was doing that with her son (…) This man (Mauricio Pinto) He has already declared that he is guilty and that his mother has nothing to do with it.”, he commented.
He pointed out that there is no need to do an internal audit in the Mayor’s Office because the defendant is no longer a public official and clarified that there are more than three thousand fixed items that the municipality has, but that there are other annual contracts that are regulated by the Labor Law.
Prosecutor Rose María Barrientos indicated that There are already eight victims who reported to the Police to denounce Mauricio Pinto, for the alleged sale of temporary contracts with the endorsement of his mother, Teresa Góngora.
He added that investigations into this case will continue and that other former officials and active officials will be summoned of the Mayor’s Office, to testify as witnesses for this alleged act of corruption.
For his part, Mauricio’s defense attorney, Freddy Diaz, pointed out that his client is considering undergoing an abbreviated procedure in which he intends to assume the guilt of the accused crimes, with the purpose of exempting his mother from responsibilities, since he assures that she was unaware of the case.
