With a surprising trill, Daniel Quintero ignited the debate this Sunday morning. Actually, it seems, it is a response to the strong words of the governor of Antioquia, Aníbal Gaviria, published by EL COLOMBIANO. The governor was dispatched by the collection of insurance and said that, if money was lost for the project, it was because they failed to collect what was fair.
His message, published at 10:13 in the morning, pointed, again, to the money that the insurers turned over for the damages of the work. “I ask the Comptroller to reopen the fiscal process for Hidroituango, updating the values and calling again those responsible, those convicted and those who remain to be convicted. There are 5 billion pesos left to recover.”
The mayor’s message is, to say the least, surprising, since he himself celebrated and puffed out his chest when the payment agreement with Mapfre was signed, the Hidroituango insurer, on December 10 of last year. That agreement reached between EPM and the insurance company allowed the payment of 4.3 billion pesos.
The mayor even launched a campaign in which he named himself as the one who had recovered the money from Hidroituango. That position earned him clashes with the then president, Iván Duque, who was also behind the payment of the policies.
Why does the mayor now deny the payment he once made? Quintero’s response is not isolated. Just a few hours before the mayor’s trill, EL COLOMBIANO published an interview with the governor in which he expanded on the complaint about the collection of the policy. In an extensive conversation, Gaviria got to the bottom of the insurance issue.
Specifically, the governor of Antioquia vehemently criticized EPM for having collected only 4 billion pesos in insurance, taking into account that these had been contracted for 12 billion.
Gaviria said, in dialogue with this medium: “The all-risk insurance contracts, plus the loss of earnings policy, are approximately 3,200 million dollars, that at today’s exchange rate is about $14.5 or $15 billion.”
Then he questioned: “It is unworthy that this arrangement is sold to the country as the great achievement when in reality it is the great question mark. It is outrageous that Hidroituango is being sold to the country as something negative, as something that wants to stigmatize us Antioquians, and I will not allow that, because what Hidroituango has shown is resilience. Look, not a single life was lost in one of the biggest contingencies in Colombia, and not a single peso should have been lost, because that’s what insurance is taken out for. If the insurance had been allowed to be collected, perhaps the scenario we had was that in Hidroituango not a life was lost and not a peso was lost. If a peso is going to be lost, it was because they stopped charging it.”
Quintero’s request, then, appears to be a response to the governor’s statements. The two leaders have maintained a tense cordiality, a tug-of-war that has confronted them on some occasions.
Did the mayor drop the gauntlet? It seems so, but his request is not very viable, since the Comptroller’s Office has already issued a ruling and the insurer has already paid what was due for the Hidroituango incident.. Moreover, reopening the process could bring problems to Quintero himself, since under his administration the payment was signed in which, according to the governor, up to 10 billion pesos were not collected. That is to say, he could be, then, the investigated one. And it must be taken into account that the process contemplated that there would be no subsequent claims.
The insurance issue seemed out of date, but recent statements make us believe that it is still an issue.