President Gustavo Petro in a televised address this May 7.
Photo: ANDREA PUENTES
President Gustavo Petro He addressed Colombians this May 7 in a televised address to unify the Government’s position on the alleged case of corruption in the Risk Management Unit (UNGRD) that tarnishes the management of the first left-wing administration in the country.
In his speech on national television, Petro assured that “the fight against corruption is not a speech, it is not words on the air. Fighting corruption is a matter of first principlesbut also of life or death” and stated that “without opportunism, I have put my life at risk to reveal the networks that have led to public money ending up in private pockets in Colombia.”
Furthermore, he said that when he arrived at the Government he found “what he already knew”, that is, a “structural and professionalized corruption that has taken over several institutions of the Colombian State. My responsibility is to destroy and neutralize them.”
(Read: “’Neither the Government nor the president are complicit’: Velasco went against Olmedo López”)
The president also made reference to four other acts of corruption that were occurring within government entities: in the National Fund for Social Benefits of Teachers (Fomag), in the Fiduprevisora and even, in Ecopetrol and the DIAN. “Billions of pesos belonging to teachers and the Nation have been lost in a network of contractors that has been built for years,” he denounced.
According to Petro, “Ecopetrol is the scene of the nation’s great embezzlement, permanently covered up by control bodies and without criminal investigation. And there is a strong ring of corruption established for three decades between political leaders, the public force, DIAN officials and customs that allow the massive entry of contraband,” among others.
(We recommend: “This was the crossing between Claudia López and Sergio Fajardo, who told her that ‘she is unleashed’”)
Therefore, he assured that The case at the UNGRD is a case of structural corruption that has been going on for years. “evaporating the money that is for the victims of natural and climate tragedies and converting it for the personal enrichment of various officials. The case of the tank cars, which was not our guideline, unfortunately this is just another case.”
On the other hand, he indicated that the case of the tank cars was not his directive, since his emergency decrees for La Guajira were declared unenforceable. However, he indicated that this “is not an excuse, because the fall of the emergency decrees was not an invitation to carry out an apparently rigged contract.”
Finally, the president questioned the work of the lawyers who defend the principle of opportunity of Olmedo López and Sneyder Pinilla, since, according to him, They were “attacked by me for being related to the Bogotá contracting cartel or the Toga Cartel.”
And he asked the Prosecutor’s Office to investigate all UNGRD hiring in the last 8 years, as well as peace resources (OCAD-Paz). “This government will be ready to collaborate with all the information that is necessary” and he concluded with that “attack is strong against the Government”, referring again to the existence of a supposed “soft coup.”
