A new chapter in the Risk Management scandal opened this Friday – July 26 – after the Attorney General’s Office announced that it had opened a preliminary investigation against several officials and former officials of the National Government, including the Minister of Finance, Ricardo Bonilla, for alleged participation in the irregularities that the Prosecutor’s Office is revealing.
According to this watchdog, the process will require, in addition to Bonilla González, the former Minister of the Interior, Luis Fernando Velasco; and the former director of DAPRE, Carlos Ramón González; who will be investigated to see if they directed contracts to favor congressmen, in exchange for the approval of social reforms and other projects.
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“For the same facts, the Disciplinary Investigation Chamber linked the Colombian ambassador to Argentina, Camilo Romero, and the congressmen Wadith Alberto Manzur, Julio Elías Chagüi Flórez, Karen Astrith Manrique Olarte, Liliana Esther Bitar Castilla, Julián Peinado Ramírez, “Juan Diego Muñoz Cabrera, Juan Pablo Gallo Maya, and German Rogelio Rozo Anis,” the statement said.
The Attorney General’s Office argued the jobs to respond to a case against Gustavo Petro.
The disciplinary action initiated by the Public Prosecutor’s Office seeks to identify those who may be responsible, determine the occurrence of the conduct, establish whether it constitutes a disciplinary offense and define whether or not those involved acted under a cause for exclusion of liability.
“The Attorney General’s Office linked the former Presidential Advisor for the Regions, Sandra Liliana Ortiz, to the preliminary investigation in the file that was opened against congressmen Iván Leonidas Name Vásquez and Andrés Davids Calle Aguas, for allegedly receiving money from a contract signed by UNGRD for the purchase of 60 water tankers to transport drinking water to La Guajira,” this entity added.
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This request against Minister Ricardo Bonilla is added to the process that the Attorney General’s Office started last week for this same case, after he was implicated in this scandal when chats were revealed in which they are mentioned in order to divert resources from the entity to pay congressmen in order to approve projects of the Petro Government.
Ministry of Finance – Ricardo Bonilla.
A determining role
It should be remembered that in the hearing held on July 25 before In Bogotá’s 35th Court of Guarantees, the Prosecutor’s Office referred to some officials of the Petro government who would be involved in the case and who, allegedly, would have given the order to give money to congressmen, and among those it highlighted that Bonilla González would have played a ‘determining role’.
“You, Mr. Sneyder, coordinated with Maria Alejandra Benavides, advisor to the Minister of Finance, Ricardo Bonilla, contracts for the municipalities of Cotorra, Saravena and Carmen de Bolivar, in which the senators and representatives Julio Elias Chagui, Wadith Manzur Imbett, Karen Astrid Manrique Olarte, Liliana Esther Bitar Castilla, Julian Peinado, Juan Diego Muñoz Cabrera and Juan Pablo Gallo were unduly interested, “according to the instructions given by Minister Ricardo Bonilla,” explained prosecutor Andrea Muñoz in her speech.
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The scandal at UNGRD began when local media revealed in February the alleged embezzlement of 46.8 billion pesos (about 11.7 million dollars) in the purchase of 40 tanker trucks to bring drinking water to desert areas of the Caribbean department of La Guajira.
Tank trucks
Added to this is the revelation that money from that entity was used to pay bribes to the former presidents of the Senate, Iván Name (Green Alliance), and the House of Representatives, Andrés Calle (Liberal Party) and other congressmen. in exchange for support in Congress for President Gustavo Petro’s social reforms.
