The recent Secretary General of the Presidential OfficeJorge Alva, has entered the list of questioned officials of the Government of peter castle. It is that, in the middle of the week, it came to light that the president’s new right-hand man records complaints of violence against women.
So far, from the Executive, Prime Minister Aníbal Torres was the only one to rule on the matter. In this regard, he pointed out that when Alva Coronado was appointed, he had no police, judicial or criminal record. However, he stated that the accusation will be evaluated by the president.
If the head of state acted, Jorge Alva would be the third secretary general of the Presidential Office to leave the Government Palace due to questions, as well as his predecessors Bruno Pacheco and Carlos Jaico. Indeed, both former officials left the Executive for alleged irregularities while in office.
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Why were the two former secretaries removed from the Palace in less than a year since Pedro Castillo assumed the reins of the country? Let’s review.
On November 23, 2021, Bruno Pacheco Castillo ceased to be the general secretary of the Government Palace after holding the position for four months, after being accused of being involved in alleged acts of corruption. He arrived at the Presidential Office on July 29, 2021, one day after Pedro Castillo settled in the Casa de Pizarro.
His name gained notoriety the first week of October when former high-ranking military officers from the Army and the Air Force denounced alleged acts of interference in the processes of promotion to general. Later, the head of Sunat, Luis Enrique Vera, accused Pacheco Castillo of pressuring him to protect to some companies associated with the then official.
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The accusations that ended up sinking him and opening tax investigation processes were those related to the businesswoman Karelim López. In this regard, Bruno Pacheco was accused of being the mediator between the investigated and the high officials of the Executive to favor certain companies in public tenders. Suspicions even grew when a stagecoach found $20,000 in a toilet tank inside the Palace.
Bruno Pacheco presented his letter of resignation on November 19which was accepted four days later.
Carlos Jaico met in reserve with Repsol representatives
The day after the removal of Pacheco Castillo, Carlos Jaico Carranza, a member of Alianza para el Progreso, assumed the charge of the General Secretariat of the Presidential Office. The second former trusted official arrived at the Palace without any precedent to his credit.
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It was not until the last week of January 2022 when it was revealed that Jaico Carranza had met in private with representatives of the Repsol company, a multinational company responsible for the contamination of the Ventanilla sea due to an oil spill, at the Spanish Embassy in Peru.
The discovery of this meeting, plus the pressure from the alleged ‘shadow cabinet’ -a group of officials who would advise President Pedro Castillo-, led to the departure of Carlos Jaico from the General Secretariat of the Presidential Office, who submitted his irrevocable resignation on January 28, which was made official on February 2.
