More than 300 city officials, including former mayors, former deputy mayors and others, were implicated in cases of embezzlement and diversion of public funds by audits of the Comptroller General of the Republic (CGR) in the last decade. But despite finding criminal and administrative responsibilities, they remained unpunished, reveals the investigation carried out by Urnas Abiertas.
The research entitled “Situation of municipal transparency in Nicaragua”, is based on CGR resolutions that were published on its website between 2015 and 2020, but which audit previous municipal periods.
In these he found 14 mayors who served as civil servants in the period they were audited and more than 333 municipal workers implicated in cases of embezzlement of funds with type responsibilities: administrative, civil and criminal.
“Liability was found in officials of 71 municipalities. In these administrative responsibility was given to 319 municipal workers, while 237 gave civil responsibility and 49 were accused of criminal presumption’. In some cases, the responsibilities are classified as administrative and civil, since they belong to both categories”, they detail in their report.
The team of investigators points out that the funds involved in these cases of corruption amount to more than 50 million cordobas, divided into C$ 31.49 million found in cases with criminal liability and 19.23 million córdobas in those classified as civil or administrative.
However, the cases did not follow the course of the investigations and they went unpunished. This shows that “the efforts of the CGR continue to be insufficient to solve the serious problems of corruption” in the country.
Mayors implicated in corruption
According to the CGR report, the year in which more “economic damage” due to embezzlement and diversion of public funds there was was 2018 and the one that was least reported was 2020. The majority of cases involve mayors and officials of the government party.
“There were ten cases with millionaire figures (more than a million córdobas) in economic damage. In these, a presumption of criminal responsibility was granted to all the mayors in office, of whom, during the periods in which said responsibilities were found, seven were governed by the FSLN and three by the PLC”, they point out.
The “most striking case” occurred in the Granada mayor’s office. According to the information compiled in a resolution of the CGR, which was published in 2018, but analyzes the income and expenses of the municipality between 2010 and 2012, criminal liability was found for 4.24 million against the liberal mayor, Eulogio Mejía Marenco (2008 – 2012), his former financial director, Roger Molina, and his former financial adviser, Guillermo Gelano.
The other mayor’s office that had the most economic damage with criminal implications was that of Saint John of the East. “In two audits carried out in two different periods, economic damage was found for a total of C$4.09 million córdobas,” says Urnas Abiertas.
In the first audit carried out in 2014, but which analyzes projects executed two years earlier, responsibility was found for 1.27 million córdobas at former Sandinista mayor, Miguel Ángel Calero Gutiérrez (2008 – 2012) and the project manager Kenny Douglas Gutiérrez.
The second carried out in 2018, but published in 2019, revealed implications for 2.82 million córdobas in the Sandinista mayor Brenda Jiménez Urbina (2012 – 2021), the former vice mayor Ernesto Elías Boza, the head of the administration unit, Rosaura Lópeez, from the Soveyda Potosme finance department and the head of the tax collection unit, César López Lagos.
Sandinista and liberal mayors are implicated
In the mayor’s office of Santa Teresa, Carazo, an audit of the years 2013 and 2014 was carried out in 2018 and it was concluded that there was mishandling of 1.91 million córdobas by the former Sandinista mayor, Iván Dinarte (2008 – 2017), the financial director Sergio Jarquín García and the project director Uberne García Salazar.
For its part, in the mayor’s office of Comalapa, located in Chontales, criminal responsibility was found for economic damage for embezzlement and diversion of public funds of 1.91 million córdobas of the liberal mayor Germán Otero Arróliga (2008 – 2012) and the person in charge of administration and Finance, Maritza Morales Romero.
Likewise, there was misappropriation of funds in the mayor’s offices of Camoapa, Jalapa and Diría in which the mayors Humberto Pérez Largaespada (2004 – 2008), Rolando Ruíz Díaz (2004 – 2008) and Giancarlos Ruiz Rodriguez (2004 – 2008) are involved.
Although the audits found criminal liability in these cases, they were dismissed. Only in one of the cases were “resources and mechanisms for challenge in the courts, where administrative liability for payment was also charged; declaring that there is no place for the amparo remedy that was requested in a specific case; Y ordering, failing that, the payment of unjustified balances”, they detail.
