The Sandinista mayor of Rivas, Wilfredo López Hernández, is detained in the Judicial Assistance Directorate, known as El Chipote, in Managua, where he was transferred since last Friday after the Police raided his home in the city of Rivas, according to sources close to the case.
López, a local FSLN leader who supported enthusiasm for the project of the failed interoceanic canal in 2014is investigated by alleged embezzlement of funds in various municipal projects.
In particular, the overvaluation of the “Casas para el Pueblo Bismarck Martínez” project, which has not yet been inaugurated, and the registration of properties in the name of third parties, as well as the remodeling project of the city park, in which presumes a diversion of funds of more than two million córdobas.
Last February, the Rivas mayor’s office was intervened by the Economic Investigations Directorate of the Police and the Municipal Development Institute (INIFOM), and Mayor López was suspended from office to be investigated along with ten other workers from the commune.
Days after the municipal intervention, the mayor appeared together with Laureano Ortega, son of the presidential couple, at the inauguration of the third Rubén Darío International Arts Festival. Instead, the main officials of his Administration: the manager Doyler Balmaceda; the head of Planning, Martha Hernández; the project manager, Ernesto Barrios; and the institution’s legal adviser, Carlos Molina, were forced to resign from their posts.
On that occasion, the former opposition councilor from Rivas, Josué Vásquez, currently in exile, characterized the mayor’s management as “not very transparent”, because he had eliminated the bidding processes, his office had an assigned budget of two million to three million córdobas; and López Hernández’s salary was very high, although he did not specify the figure.
“One of the (legal) requirements is that the projects be tendered, but with ‘Wil’ López that began to be lost. He named the company that was going to carry out the projects and what was approved was not what actually existed,” said former councilor Vásquez.
