2024-01-24 20:52:48
Photograph provided by the Presidency of Colombia of President Gustavo Petro during a visit to Tumaco. EFE/ Andrea Puentes/Presidency of Colombia
The Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, assured this Wednesday that the temporary suspension of Chancellor Álvaro Leyva by the Attorney General’s Office (Public Ministry) is a maneuver to not let a “popular, democratic government” govern.
The Attorney General’s Office decided this Wednesday to bring charges against the chancellor and suspend him for three months for alleged irregularities in the bidding for a contract to manufacture passports, something that the president sees as a political maneuver by a position appointed by the previous Government.
“They are not going to let us govern, well of course, it is the mentality of those who (are) used to leaving people abandoned. They do not want there to be an example of a demonstration of what a popular government is, a democratic government,” Petro said at an event in Guapi (Cauca), in the Colombian Pacific, where the Executive moved this week to govern.
Petro was not surprised with the decision announced by attorney Margarita Cabello Blanco.
“They are going to suspend our ministers here and there, we already experienced this in Human Bogotá,” he said, alluding to the fact that the same Attorney General’s Office, when it was directed by Alejandro Ordoñez, decided to disqualify him as mayor of Bogotá, a position he held between 2012 and 2015, for alleged irregularities in the granting of garbage contracts.
And he stated that “if someone leaves, someone else follows. The next one is going to be replaced, he has to be followed by someone better.”
Administrative investigation
Last September, the Attorney General’s Office opened an investigation against Leyva and the Secretary General of the Foreign Ministry, José Antonio Salazar, for irregularities in the cancellation of the tender to issue the passports.
The Foreign Ministry then indicated that this decision was made because, according to other companies interested in the tender, there is no free competition, since in the last 17 years the same firm, Thomas Greg & Sons, has been in charge of producing the passports and identification labels. Colombian visa.
Given these suspicions, on September 12, the Foreign Ministry suspended the award hearing in which it was going to define whether the tender was still in the hands of Thomas Greg & Sons or if, on the contrary, it was declared void due to the lack of bidders.
However, on October 2, Leyva said in a statement that “the figure of manifest urgency was resorted to” to extend the contract in question, while “an immediate call for a new fully guaranteed tender” was made to avoid delays. in the issuance of these travel documents.
Current contract and demands
The contract with Thomas Greg & Sons still had three years of validity left, which is why the company, after failing to reach a conciliation agreement with the Government, announced last December a lawsuit against the State for 117,000 million pesos (about 30 million dollars).
At the beginning of the bidding, companies were presented as those in charge of official documents for France or Peru, but all the companies withdrew, alleging that there were no guarantees to compete for that contract.
The Attorney General’s Office indicated that the first mistake of the chancellor, who is currently traveling in Switzerland, was “to declare tender 001 of 2023 void without having the factual, legal and technical foundations, which could have transgressed the principles that govern contracting.” state”.
Secondly, the control body issued charges against Leyva because it decreed “manifest urgency” during the development of the contractual process without, apparently, there being grounds to adopt that determination.
EFE
1706140495
#govern #Petro #suspension #Colombian #chancellor