The Sandinista mayor of Rivas, Wilfredo López Hernández, is being investigated for the second time for alleged acts of corruption in the municipality, according to sources close to the case. The local leader will follow the in front of the Mayor’s Office, although the municipal government is intervened by the Presidency of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, through the Municipal Development Institute (Inifom).
In a first version of this note it was indicated that López was being held in Managua, where he had been transferred since last Friday, one day after the police raided his home located in the Los Robles residential complex, in the city of Rivas. However, the sources assured that the mayor is not under arrest.
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.
On the night of Saturday, June 25, the Police returned to the mayor’s house and seized two vans and a Honda brand car, as well as a large amount of money that exceeds 30 thousand dollars.
Despite the alleged embezzlement, sources in the case point out that the decline of the mayor began with “an economic struggle” with the deputy and political secretary of the FSLN in Rivas, Miguel Carballo.
They also warn that “due to a special consideration” Mayor López was not transferred to a prison and everything indicates that the government party decided to keep him in office until the November municipal elections are over.
City Hall is still involved
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.
