July 20, 2022, 4:00 AM
July 20, 2022, 4:00 AM
With documents, the deputy Luciana Campero, of the Citizen Community (CC), showed that the Chinese company CAMC managed the bidding process for a contract in Yacimientos del Litio Boliviano (YLB). However, the president of the state company, Carlos Ramos, came out to deny it categorically.
CAMC is the Chinese company in which Gabriela Zapata, ex-girlfriend of former president Evo Morales, was commercial manager. On May 23, 2017, she was sentenced to 10 years in prison for the crimes of legitimation of illicit profits, criminal association, ideological falsehood, use of a forged instrument, illegitimate contributions and benefits, use of public goods and services.
On November 29, 2021after five years in prison, he obtained the benefit of parole and is currently free. The judge who granted it to her set the city of Cochabamba as her place of residence, where she allegedly lives in a building in the northern part of that city, but no one ever saw her, although this medium confirmed that the apartment belongs to her.
Opposition legislator Campero denounced that CAMC worked the base document, the technical specification sheet and the amendments for the tender of a water treatment plant for the extraction of lithium that has been awarded to the Carlos Caballero Metallurgical company.
Carlos Ramos Mamani went to a press conference and in his capacity as executive president of YLB clarified that in his management “There was not and there is no contractual relationship with the CAMC company.”
The CC deputy showed that the hiring process is registered in Sicoes. “There were two processes, the first was annulled and the second is the one that was awarded. In the first, which was discarded, he presented three amendments, specifications that companies must meet. YLB arbitrarily nullified it without an answer as to why,” he explained.
The president of YLB, in relation to the international bidding process for Engineering, Procurement and Construction of the Water Treatment Plant and Pumping Facilities, emphasized that the same was carried out in strict compliance with Supreme Decree 0181within the framework of transparency and responsibility.
“We are not going to allow the transparency of YLB to be questioned, much less of our Government,” he said, referring to the complaint and demanded that the deputy “present the documents that support the statements made.”
The parliamentarian did so minutes later at another press conference. “In the second process, three CAMC technical specifications were presented, prepared according to the needs of the project. It’s a shame that the president of YLB lies so cynically. Why didn’t you answer what this Chinese company is doing in this process, why was it awarded to the Caballero company, is it because the owner is close to Evo Morales?
“I ask the population not to be surprised by malicious statements that seek to harm industrialization to generate uncertainty about this important process that the country is facing,” Ramos said and urged opposition politicians not to try to deceive the population by political-partisan desires that only seek media prominence.
The deputy pointed out that the person responsible for contracting the process denounced irregularities in the company’s contracting. “The presidency of YLB, the Minister of Hydrocarbons were aware of this complaint. The workers sent another complaint to the Minister of Justice, but he did nothing.”
