Five former authorities in charge of Maipú municipal education will be formalized in a criminal case for the crime of embezzlement of public funds. These are the first closest members of former mayor Cathy Barriga’s circle to appear in court.
Among the five subjects that will be formalized are Jacqueline Sánchez and María Luisa Pizarro, two former officials in senior positions in the corporation during the administration of former mayor Cathy Barriga.
The foregoing is due to a filing of a complaint -beginning of 2022- by the current mayor of Maipú, Tomás Vodanovic, who pointed to the incorrect use of $1,414 million, which correspond to the Public Education Support Fund (FAEP) between 2016 and 2020.
To this is added another $821 million from the Preferential School Subsidy (SEP) in 2021. Both funds are destined to “strengthening public education and priority students.”
Along the same lines and according to the Municipality of Maipú, the amounts of the FAEP and SEP would have been used for salaries and social security contributions, and not for what was budgeted. This deprived “the maintenance and improvement of buildings and infrastructure of high schools and gardens, or the contracting of services and purchase of supplies for activities to attract enrollment.”
The current general secretary of the Maipú Education Corporation, Ignacio Cáceres, expressed his appreciation of “the step in the process to determine the responsibilities of the serious damage done to public education in Maipú, and especially to the more than 16,000 children and adolescents who attend our establishments”.
“We will collaborate with everything necessary so that these events do not go unpunished, because the school communities of Maipú deserve justice,” Cáceres concluded.
