President Gustavo Petro ordered to put under the magnifying glass the inventory of property forfeiture that was delivered to the National Narcotics Directorate, today SAE, given the possibility that “We may be facing one of the worst acts of corruption in history”.
(Over 11,000 mob assets are illegally seized.)
This is how the Colombian president referred to possible irregularities in the handling of assets seized from the mafia and other criminal organizations by the entity.
“I thank the Attorney General of the Nation for reconstructing the inventory of property in forfeiture that was delivered to the National Narcotics Directoratetoday SAE ”, the president said on his social networks where he urged the Prosecutor’s Office to evaluate the issue.
Petro’s message is released 10 days after a debate in the plenary of the Senate in which the appointed director of the Special Assets Company (SAE)Daniel Rojas, made a worrying account cut.
(Assets of the SAE could leave $7.6 billion to the State in 3 years).
As he said, the big problem of that entity is inventories: “We are not certain about the cadastral value, the commercial value, of most of the assets and much less of the companies. These approximate values that you see there, something like $8.8 trillion pesos, differ in their source and in their valuation method from others such as the one highlighted by Senator and President Roy Barreras”Rojas said.
The resources from the sale of this property will go to the coffers of the Special Assets Society (SAE).
“Since the junction we do not have a transparent inventory and an information system, I have informed the Prosecutor’s Office in the meetings I held with the delegated prosecutor. From the moment I took a position, the first thing I have done is ask the appointment with the Comptroller General of the Republic to express my concerns because I did not know the report, and they have not been released”Rojas added.
Faced with the call from President Petro, Andrés Ávila, the outgoing director of the SAE told the EL TIEMPO Investigative Unit that the SAE received in 2014 an inventory in Excel from the DNE: “There were 19,819 real estate registration pages and more than 1,700 companies without any type of real inventory. More than 12,000 vehicles were inventories on paper and only a little more than 5,000 were found. The companies were delivered without any type of information and the entity did not have an information system that would allow the control of its assets”.
“Given the irregularities found, not only were the corresponding complaints made, which are under investigation by the FGN, but all the assets were also visited one by one to assess their physical, legal and financial status,” he added.
In addition, Ávila says that he agrees with the investigation.
“We share the need to advance in the investigations on the corruption generated in the DNE and in a greater strengthening of the SAE, an aspect on which extensive work has been carried out in recent years,” Ávila pointed out and announced a statement on the subject.
BRIEFCASE
