New chats about the alleged involvement of Colombian Finance Minister Ricardo Bonilla in the corruption scandal of the National Unit for Disaster Risk Management (UNGRD) were revealed this Wednesday by Noticias Caracol.
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The conversations, held by the former deputy director of Disaster Management at UNGRD, Sneyder Pinilla, show how Bonilla allegedly coordinated the delivery of three contracts for 92 billion pesos (about 23 million dollars) that were intended to benefit six congressmen so that they would support the expansion of the government’s borrowing limit.
The scandal at UNGRD began when local media revealed in February the alleged embezzlement of 46.8 billion pesos (about 11.7 million dollars) in the purchase of 40 tanker trucks to bring drinking water to desert areas of the Caribbean department of La Guajira.
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Added to this is the revelation that money from that entity was used to pay bribes to the presidents of the Senate, Iván Name (Green Alliance), and the House of Representatives, Andrés Calle (Liberal Party) and other congressmen in exchange for support in Congress for the social reforms of President Gustavo Petro.
Olmedo López, former director of UNGRD
Cesar Melgarejo / THE TIME
According to Noticias Caracol, it all began on December 11 when Bonilla signed a resolution with which the Ministry of Finance disbursed 700 billion pesos (about 175 million dollars) to UNGRD.
This Unit was then to sign three contracts for 92 billion pesos (about 23 million dollars) for works in the Caribbean municipalities of Cotorra and Carmen de Bolívar, and in Saravena, a town on the border with Venezuela.
In one of the conversations, the minister told Pinilla that he was “concerned” for the destination of the resources of the “viable projects”.
Then, the former deputy director of UNGRD contacted María Alejandra Benavides, Bonilla’s advisor, who He asked the former official of the Unit to notify the intermediaries that the contracts were going to move through that entity.
Olmedo Lopez, director of UNGRD
UNGRD
To do so, the mayors of the aforementioned municipalities had to declare false calamities with which they sought to justify the contracts, which were ultimately not signed because when they were about to do so, the tanker scandal broke out, which led to the resignation of Pinilla and the then director of UNGRD, Olmedo López, in February.
In a statement given last month to investigators at the Supreme Court of Justice, revealed on Tuesday by Noticias Caracol, López said that the ELN guerrilla group is involved in the corruption scandal in that entity and, like Pinilla, it implicated Bonilla.
“This is a network that includes ministers and contractors, but in the middle there are other officials (…) and it affects an actor who has a very strong military capacity”.
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“The name on that paper that I showed to the Prosecutor’s Office and that appears in the summary of my statement (…) is the ELN and its great influence in the department of Arauca (bordering Venezuela),” added Lopez.
Minister Bonilla assured this Wednesday that his “innocence” will prevail with evidence.
“I will face any examination of my official acts with respect for justice. My innocence, beyond any shadow of doubt, will prevail with evidence and arguments that my legal team will provide, without distracting me from my true obligations.”Bonilla said in a message posted on his social networks.
EFE
