The Prosecutor’s Office charged the former Sports Minister María Isabel Urrutia with new charges of corruption for authorizing a contract of almost 5,000 million pesos (1.1 million dollars or 1 million euros) that did not meet the legal requirements, the prosecuting body reported this Thursday.
(Read here: Colombia consolidates the growth of the airline sector with record figures)
Urrutia was charged with the crimes of contract without compliance with legal requirements and ideological falsehood in documents related to the pre-contractual process.
In 2022, Urrutia allegedly ordered to open a contracting process for the implementation of the software ‘National Validation System’, which allowed football match tickets to be associated with the IDs of those who bought them to facilitate access to the stadiums.
This management, however, would “violated hiring rules”, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, because the contractor was chosen directly and not through a public bidding call.
Urrutia, apparently, twice looked for intermediaries to award them the contract; however, It conditioned them to subcontract to an individual with whom it had been agreed from the beginning of the process that they would keep the project.
(See here: Why the reforms would be the main risks for the credit rating)
In addition, her team warned her on three occasions that this was illegal behavior, although she ignored these warnings.
Finally, the Olympic champion and her team did not do a market study or carry out any process to agree on a price, but rather a cost of production was directly set. 4,950 million pesos (about 1.12 million dollars or 1.07 million euros).
The Prosecutor’s Office also added that although the former minister was authorized to “design and implement a national validation system”, what he hired was a “implementation analysis of the national validation system”for which she was also accused of falsifying public documents.
It is not the first time that Urrutia has been prosecuted for corruption crimes, since in 2023 she was accused by the Prosecutor’s Office before the Supreme Court of Justice for illegal actions in the processing and execution of more than 100 contracts.
(Follow here: President Petro accuses JP Morgan of ‘financially cornering’ the country)
In the investigation it was established that, allegedly, between March 2 and 6, 2023 “104 contracts were entered into for the provision of professional services and management support, ignoring the legal requirements.”
EFE
