February 15, 2023, 5:00 AM
February 15, 2023, 5:00 AM
The hearing lasted just over two hours. At this time, the first judge of Anti-Corruption Instruction, Roberto Parada, decided to send pretrial detention for Andrea Forfori, the architect and former beauty queen who served as director of the Santa Cruz de la Sierra Botanical Garden. He considered that there was a risk of hindering the investigations if he were released. Witnesses in this case indicated that the defendant asked them to withdraw the accusations.
By late afternoon, the former official, who was part of Mayor Jhonny Fernández’s circle of trust, She was transferred to the Palmasola prison, where she must remain for 60 days. Within this period, the Public Ministry must formalize an accusation for embezzlement of public funds and concussion, crimes that Forfori could have committed when collecting public resources destined to pay the salaries of the personnel under his charge.
Previously, the former administrator of the Enrique Mariaca Botanical Garden was sent to prison for this same criminal process. The complaint was filed in December 2022 by councilors of the Autonomous Community (CA), based on testimonies from a group of 11 people who were hired to work in the Botanical Garden.
These professionals received their salaries for periods in which they were not yet hired. The affected They denounced that Forfori asked them to “replenish” those amounts through QR codes. that were linked to third-party bank accounts.
Councilor Juan Carlos Medrano (CA) highlighted the judge’s decisionalthough he acknowledged that the prosecutor in the case, Mirtha Mejía, had requested 90 days of preventive detention for these investigations.
“We hope that, in this prudent time, the evidence can be supplemented, the statements of the witnesses heard and that those responsible for the Human Resources Unit of the Mayor’s Office, and even the mayor Jhonny Fernández himself, involved in a statement by Andrea Forfori, sit down and give their statement”, Medrano said, after the judicial hearing to which he arrived as a complainant.
“She refrained from testifying; she stated that she was there to fulfill her requirements. However, the statement of several witnesses point out that she tried to get them to retract and that is an obstacle to justice,” he added.
When this scandal broke, the initial complaint included audio recordings, attributed to Forfori, in which claims are heard from officials for the payment of these irregularly debited salaries. “The mayor just called me, because this is a problem, it is not a problem. Where are you leaving all these people, you have no idea the number of providers you are leaving without us paying them”, is heard in one of those audios presented by the CA councillors.
From the Mayor’s Office of Santa Cruz, the spokesperson for the Legal Department, Bernardo Montenegro, affirmed that there is follow-up on this process because the institution adhered to the investigations. “The Municipal Government, by mandate of Mayor Jhonny Fernandez, has always had an absolutely clear position that any irregular act that is detected must be prosecuted,” he told reporters.
“Also We hope that the Public Ministry will act in the case of complaints against the people of the Autonomous Community (CA) that has already been presented on irregular charges for QR and interbank transfers. Both in the case of Mrs. Forfori, she must act in all cases, ”she added.
Two months ago, the mayor’s office in Santa Cruz sued the councilors of CA for an alleged payroll of 90 officials who worked in the municipality through an agreement.
The defense lawyer, Víctor Cartagena, announced that he was going to appeal before April 15, the date on which the term established for this preventive detention expires.
According to councilor Medrano, Forfori’s defense argued that the money she was collecting, according to the audio that was broadcast on social networks, was because officials owed him money.
“I am not a lawyer or a politician. AND I am not going to allow them to use my name as a political trophy, for struggles, for greater power. Hopefully this is for the good of the city and not for other interests, ”Forfori said in December through a video that he released from his social media accounts. Yesterday, he held his head and bowed his head during the precautionary hearing.
The architect was one of the officials closest to the mayor. After the judge’s decision, security agents transferred her to the prison amid the expectation of the media. She shielded her face from her and avoided being filmed in the halls of the Palace of Justice.
The management of Jhonny Fernández faces, in addition to this case, a fourth scandal for the “sale of items” and that they arrived at the Public Ministry.
Councilor José Alberti pointed out that the first complaint for the sale of items came in October 2021, five months after the beginning of the management. The case was presented to the Prosecutor’s Office, but there was still no progress or requirements.
The second complaint for the ‘sale of items’ came in mid-2022 and Teresa Góngora, who was Secretary of Human Development and, as such, part of Jhonny Fernández’s cabinet, was involved. She and her son, Mauricio Pinto, are being prosecuted for the sale of City Hall items.
The former official was preventively imprisoned in Palmasola in September and the anti-corruption judge Juan Quiroz ordered his release after completing 60 days of preventive detention. Of course, Pinto remains in prison because the prosecutor in the case, Rose Mary Barrientos, has new evidence that incriminates him.
Góngora took office in January after the municipality dismissed Raschid Guardia for a leaked audio in which he expressed himself in a misogynistic way against a member of a Jhonny Fernández campaign group.
The third complaint points to public servant José Carlos Dorado, who was in the Municipal Health Department. Those affected totaling 75, according to data from the CA bench, and they claim to have spent between $1,000 and $2,000 for a permanent position in the Mayor’s Office. This case broke out on December 3.
Alberti indicated that, unlike previous cases, the one of ‘QR payments’, has to do with eventual positions that last between two and three months with salaries for professionals quoted at almost Bs 7,000, just over $us 1,000 per month. “They made them sign the last pages of their contracts and they did not show them the rest or send them the respective copy.”
“We request the contracts from Human Resources to establish the economic damage to the commune We have identified between nine and 10 affected with this modus operandi”, Alberti pointed out. “We are going to get to the bottom. We have the evidence and they are in the Prosecutor’s Office.
In the Mayor’s Office of Santa Cruz there are about 10,000 employees, but most of them, just over 6,000, are temporary, whose contracts are renewed or expire, according to the needs of a management observed and marked by allegations of corruption.
Yesterday, a large group of people protested at the doors of the regional office of the Ministry of Labor in Santa Cruz to claim for contracts promised in the Fernández administration.
The mayor did not refer to the complaints of his former collaborator, but in mid-December it released a spot in which it mentioned “cuoteo” in favor of CA. The councilors of that political force rejected those statements.
In that spot, they ask Jhonny about the existence of a list of officials “proposed by CA” and he says that “it is true”, although he does not specify the number of those involved. Then, they ask him about the “quotas” of the opponents in the directions of the Botanical Garden and the Slaughterhouse, two decentralized entities, to which he answers: “Of course; they know; (in the) Botanical Garden, Matadero and in other places”, he affirmed.
