[ad_1]
The Office of the Attorney General of the Nation reported that, after the complaints filed by citizens and social leaders about alleged contracting irregularities in Candelaria (Valle del Cauca), several illicit acts were known in which officials and contractors in charge of planning and executing projects had committed such as road maintenance and the construction of soccer fields.
Due to these facts, in an articulated action of the Specialized Directorate against Corruption, the Special Itinerant Group and the Sectional Directorate of Cali, through CTI officials, the municipal mayor, Jorge Eliecer Ramírez Mosquera, was captured; and other persons, between officials and contractors.
(Further: Charges to former Petro officials for garbage collection model)
Those captured are: Wilson Suárez Betancourt, Secretary of Infrastructure; Óscar Darío Posso Céspedes, formulator of projects and monitoring of the hiring of the Ministry of Education; Abraham Reyes Andrade, official of the Ethnic Groups Office;
Jhonatan Ortiz Libreros, Contractor Office of Infrastructure; José Ulises Asprilla Cárdenas and Jimmy Paz Castillo, contractors.
These people will be presented before a guarantee control judge and the Prosecutor’s Office will charge them with the crimes of Aggravated conspiracy to commit a crime, undue interest in the conclusion of contracts, contract without legal requirements, falsehood in public document and falsehood in private document.
For the Prosecutor’s Office, the Candelaria Mayor’s Office officials have agreed with individuals to gain personal gain and appropriate the municipality’s money.
According to the accusing body, the first investigated contract, signed in November 2019, contemplated the construction of three soccer fields with batteries of bathrooms and bleachers, in the Buchitolo, Arenal and Poblado Campestre townships. The defined value amounted to 229 million pesos and the execution time was one month.
The verifications revealed that the scenarios were not fully completed; however, the municipal administration granted more resources and terms to the contractor. The work was never completed in its entirety.
The second contract sought the maintenance of tertiary roads. A month was agreed for its termination but, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, there is evidence that indicates that this process was directed to the same contractor.
(You may be interested in: Army captured ‘Álvaro Boyaco’, feared leader of the dissidents)
In both cases, the public officials in charge of the pre-contractual and execution stages allegedly favored Mr. José Ulises Asprilla Cárdenas to keep the two contracts mentioned.
“Apparently, they adjusted the existing hiring rules to benefit him, forged signatures and documents, engaged in impersonations, and did not exercise control or supervision,” says the statement from the accusing body.
The Prosecutor’s Office also reported that it obtained elements that corroborated the complaints filed by the social leaders of Candelaria (Valle del Cauca), Iván Giraldo Fúquene and Jhonatan Borja Pérez, who were murdered on January 30, 2020.
These people alerted about the alleged contracting irregularities in the municipal mayor’s office.
(You can continue reading: They denounce network accounts that take advantage of tragedies to scam)
JUSTICE
