The accusations and trials persecute the last two State Comptrollers

The General Comptroller of the State drags a crisis of several years full of conflicts, fights for power, corruption and networks of alleged crimes.

Since 2017, Ecuador doesn’t have a official comptroller. From 2007 to 2017, Carlos Polit he ran the institution in total and suspicious calm. To the point that, in 2012, the then president Rafael Correa assured that the country had a “luxury Comptroller”. Supposedly, all public money accounts were in order; until, five years later, the case was uncovered Odebrecht and the crisis of the control entity was revealed.

For the constitutional lawyer Ismael Quintana, the Comptroller is an institution of vital importance, because it controls how and what officials do with the money: “Someone should be crazy not to be interested in who uses our money”.

From “luxury Controller” to involved in the Odebrecht case

The Department of United States Justice revealed, in 2016, that the company Odebrecht paid bribes of more than $33.5 million to public servants in exchange for contracts. Later it would be known that Pólit allegedly received 10 million dollars for disappearing glosses and nullifying examinations of Comptroller in the construction of the San Francisco Hydroelectric Plant.

Pólit also gave Odebrecht a favorable report on the works: Manduriacu Hydroelectric Project, Pacific Refinery, Pascuales-Cuenca Polyduct and the Daule Project.

The calm of the institution vanished. started a conflict between Pólit and the one who until then was his right hand, the deputy comptroller Paul Celi.

On May 26, 2017, Polit went to United Statess on medical leave, leaving a tangle over who would be his replacement. On the one hand, days before his departure from the country, Pólit had appointed Sabett Chamoun as substitute comptroller, but Pablo Celi said that this was his position.

On June 2, 2017, Celi received a dismissal notice from the Human Talent department who broke in front of the cameras. The video went viral. A difficult afternoon between Chamoun and Celi ended when the police escort snapped to attention before Celi and called him Mr. Comptroller General of the State, by order of the Minister of the Interior at the time, Cesar Navas.

On June 20, 2017, the comptroller Carlos Polit he resigned from his post. In 2018 he was charged with concussion.

Celi, another accused of corruption

Pablo Celi was the new Deputy Comptroller until, in April 2021, he was investigated for alleged organized crime. Along with 11 other people, would have collected 20% of the payment of an invoice that Petroecuador owed to the oil services company Nolimit. On April 13, the prosecution raided his house and arrested him. But he remained Comptroller, only on vacation leave. From jail, at the end of June, appointed Carlos Riofrío as deputy comptroller.

Currently, Carlos Ríofrio is the Deputy Comptroller of the Subrogate. (GV)

Who chooses the Comptroller?

The Council for Citizen Participation and Social Control (Cpccs) is the entity that regulates the contest for the election of Comptroller. According to the schedule, on March 15, 2022, Ecuador should have a new Comptroller officially appointed. However, the Cpccs is late. Still can’t agree with him. regulation.

There was also a power struggle in this entity that caused the dismissal of its president, Sofía Almeida. Only on February 18, 2022, the changes to the regulation of the contest for Comptroller. The entire process of calling applicants is missing.

For lawyer Mauricio Alarcón-Salvador, this process will last a few months, so it is likely that “We do not have a Comptroller on the established date”. He believes that this is a debt that the Participation Council owes to its constituents.

And who chooses the members of the Council for Citizen Participation and Social Control? The Ecuadorians through popular election. The next vote will be 5 of February 2023.