The Board of Directors of Ecopetrol announced that it maintains President Ricardo Roa in office, after the investigation against him opened by the National Electoral Council (CNE) of Colombia.
The decision was made after an extraordinary meeting that lasted more than three hours at the headquarters of the state company.
Previously, upon his arrival at a unified command post (PMU) with the intention of addressing the gas crisis in Casa de Nariño, Roa assured that “there is no way for him to be removed from his position.”
“The nine members of the Board of Directors: Guillermo García Realpe; Mónica de Greiff Lindo, Tatiana Roa Avendaño; Edwin Palma Egea; Ángela María Robledo Gómez; Gonzalo Hernández Jiménez; Luis Alberto Zuleta Jaramillo; Álvaro Torres Macías and Juan José Echavarría Soto support the administrative, technical and operational management of the President of Ecopetrol, Ricardo Roa Barragán, within the framework of Strategy 2040: “Energy that Transforms,” wrote the Board of Directors in a statement.
According to the shared text, the highest body of Ecopetrol, a “permanent monitoring of the information related to the president of Ecopetrol in his role as campaign manager (of president Gustavo Petro) has been constantly evaluated the risks and their probability of occurrence and “They have had legal and regulatory advisors in Colombia and the United States.” He adds that the Board of Directors will continue to “exercise its role with due diligence and care” thus ensuring that “its decisions are in the best interest of the Company and all its shareholders.”
The CNE investigation into excessive spending in the presidential campaign of then-candidate Gustavo Petro opens a new chapter in the troubles in which the president of Ecopetrol, Ricardo Roa, who was manager of the Colombian president’s campaign, is involved.
This Wednesday Ecopetrol’s stock was impacted in the first hours of trading. At around 9:30 in the morning, the ADR fell 0.46% to $8.63 in the United States. On the Colombian Stock Exchange, the share was quoted at $1,820.
The president of Ecopetrol, Ricardo Roa, denounced a new death threat and asked to reinforce his security. This situation is similar to an event that occurred at the beginning of the year and for which citizen Douglas Mauricio Sierra was sent to prison.
The Prosecutor’s Office identified Sierra as the author of an intimidating package that included a ballot, bullets and cemetery soil, sent to the residence of the president of Ecopetrol. At the time, the president of the state energy company assured that these threats were allegedly related to an investigation that was being carried out on fuel smuggling.
Controversies
Another media scandal that the president of Ecopetrol went through was the attempted lawsuit by minority shareholders to desist from the purchase of CrownRock in the US, a strategy that would have allowed the firm’s reserves to increase, expanding fracking techniques, which is not the liking of the current Government. A group of these shareholders could, when they consider it necessary, request compensation for damages linked to this case with the price of Ecopetrol’s share and it could receive lawsuits and be investigated for this and other causes, as it is listed on the Stock Exchange. EU.
