At another crossroads is the Minister of Mines Irene Vélez. In recent days, the senior official has defended and justified her interventions based on a report issued by the entity where it is explained that the country’s gas reserves would be sufficient until 2042.
(Read: Former Director of Hydrocarbons did not participate in the Minminas report).
However, the veracity of the report has been widely questioned. The Vice Minister of Energy, Belizza Ruiz, stated that she was unaware of the “Balance of hydrocarbon contracts and resources available for the just energy transition”, now the then director of Hydrocarbons and who appears in the document, He noted that he did not design or formulate the report.
Along with this, the Minister of Finance, José Antonio Ocampo, clarified that for now final figures are not available and the Government will hold a meeting next week to review the matter.
“Next week we are going to meet as a government team with the Ministry of Commerce, with Ecopetrol. There are no final estimates of the reserves yet, we have to see how the exploration contracts already signed guarantee sufficient reserves”, said the finance minister.
(Also: The origin of the ‘divorce’ of Irene Vélez and her Vice Minister of Energy).
Consequently, the attorney Margarita Cabello assured that the control entity will open a preliminary inquiry to the Minister of Mines to follow up on possible falsehoods in the documents of the controversial report on gas resources, according to ‘Caracol’.
“Thanks to what was published by a media outlet, the Attorney General’s Office opened this investigation to verify the alleged falsity of these documents, about the signatures if they were on these papers or not, if the documents were true and if they came from the correct instancesCabello said.
More details about the investigation that will be carried out are expected to be known in the coming days.
(See: Entities attached to Minminas ask to accept the resignation of deputy minister).
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