September 16, 2022, 9:55 AM
September 16, 2022, 9:55 AM
The Santa Cruz Mayor’s Office is once again implicated in an alleged act of corruption. This time it is about the complaint of the councilors of the Autonomous Community (CA) about an alleged “item sales network” in this institutionwhich would involve councilors, secretaries, directors, in addition to Mayor Jhonny Fernández.
Thursday, the Prosecutor’s Office raided the offices of the Fifth Municipal looking for documentation related to this complaint. The members of the Special Force to Fight Crime entered the offices of the Municipal Department of Human Development in order to identify some irregular contracts. They were carrying out this intervention for more than an hour and a half, led by the assigned prosecutor, Rose María Barrientos.
“This is an investigation of a particular person, whoTaking advantage of the fact that his mother was a secretary, he began to do his own business with the sale of items, promising an item to people and charging them for it, “said Erwin Tapia, director of Legal Affairs of the Mayor’s Office, in a contact with EL DEBER Radio.
Tapia reduced this complaint by pointing directly at Mauricio Pinto and his mother Teresa Góngora, former Secretary of Human Development, as the persons responsible for this crime; however, the complaint of the opposition councilors refers that there would be more people involved, both from the Executive and the municipal Legislative.
“We, as a municipality, initiated a process against her (Teresa Góngora) for using State assets, since the young man (Mauricio Pinto) used the offices of his mother without being a public official and within this new investigation we also adhere as a municipality to the complaint. Both are going to be investigated,” said Tapia.
Teresa Góngora held the position of Secretary of Human Development after the dismissal of Raschid Guardia. His time in that municipal department was short and was marked by accusations of nepotism and usurpation of functions. In June she was replaced by Adriana Pedraza and, according to Tapia, she was also completely disassociated from the Mayor’s Office.
In turn, the official denied that it is possible to access work in the Mayor’s Office with an item obtained through economic remuneration and He urged people not to fall for this type of deception.
“That does not exist within the Mayor’s Office, people should not be surprised by these types of individuals who take advantage of their positions or their family ties to defraud people with the story that they are going to get an item for them,” Tapia emphasized.
For his part, Councilman Juan Carlos Medrano (CA) believes that the Mayor’s Office had been aware of these complaints for months and instead of initiating proceedings, covered up the facts and tried to divert attention, the same thing they would be doing now by holding Pinto and Góngora responsible only to protect the rest of the officials involved.
“We have received 10 victims from different municipal addresses that they would have been scammed and that they also know people who would have gone to work with this sale of items, then it seems to me a shame that the Mayor’s Office does not assume responsibility, since the mayor is directly responsible because he signs the items memorandum, here there is a network, this works from the one who captures the victim to the mayor who signs the item”, explained Medrano.
The opposition councilor emphasized that the former secretary of Human Development and her son are not the only ones responsible for this network of selling items, since there are at least a thousand items that were sold in complicity with officials of the Mayor’s Office and councilors of Solidarity Civic Unit (UCS)for which he pointed out that more than $3 million were collected irregularly.
“There is a director involved, of a very important distribution, that we are not going to say the name at the request of the victims who fear reprisals, the chats also point to different councilors, the director of Human Resources (Manfredo Menacho) and the mayor himself (Jhonny Fernández) that he was aware of these items sold and they even had to ask him to see when he would sign them,” added Medrano.
