By Humberto Leyton
As if it were a television game show, former mayor Andrés Hurtado donated the money to build the ill-fated 60th Street bridge in Ibagué, without, so far, any authority calling him to respond for the disaster of the work.
According to the ex-president’s verbiage, the city was going to change its history because a building of such magnitude had never been built, and that mobility problems would be resolved for life, but this lying speech, like all of this character’s, was left behind. a few hours in ruins when the liquidation of the bridge contract was ordered by Mayor Johana Aranda, who could no longer resist the fair pressure of opinion and citizens who were demanding decisions to end this embellishment. Also to recover in health, and get away from possible fiscal, disciplinary and criminal responsibilities that may arise due to the investigations that the Comptroller General’s Office, the Attorney General’s Office and the Prosecutor’s Office carry out on the questioned contract.
The bridge that was scheduled to begin work on April 28, 2023 and finish on December 28 of the same year; That is, eight months later, it became the biggest disaster of the Hurtado administration. Today it can barely show two patches of pavement: one on the parallel of the Jordan and another behind Multicentro, plus some excavations that were carried out for changes of pipes and electrical networks; works that the oversight offices estimate at a progress of just over one percent, while the Municipality and the Comptroller’s Office consider them at close to six by five percent.
As has been widely reported, the work that Hurtado had initially estimated at 60 billion pesos, after a debate and complaints made about the cost overruns that this figure represented, was lowered to a bank loan of 40 billion pesos, of which there was the aforementioned disbursement of 12 billion pesos, supposedly for the start of the work.
Eye….eye…..eye….
The specific figures
In certificates and documentation that rest in the Prosecutor’s Office they establish the following sums: 27 thousand 552 million remain to be disbursed.
12,549 million pesos have been disbursed on June 29, 2023; and 804 million on December 18 of the same year, something like the Christmas bonus, because on that date it was known that the work was going to fail, everyone was celebrating December, and few people realized this financial operation , except for former mayor Andrés Hurtado and his entourage of close collaborators who carried out the money movements. In addition, Cortolima on December 6 had denied them the environmental permit because the contractors did not meet the required requirements; This raises an obvious question: why did they make this expenditure when they already knew that they could not carry out the work? What was the supreme interest that led former Mayor Hurtado to carry out this operation? What did this money do? These are answers that Ibaguera citizens and taxpayers expect to know exactly about this suspicious disbursement of 804 million pesos.
1,473 million paid in interest
However. The most serious thing about this situation of the failed 60 bridge is that the people of Ibaguera began to pay interest for works that have not been carried out, which characterizes a patrimonial detriment, according to the lawyers consulted, since it constitutes a serious impact on the public resources; since the municipality has paid interest to Findeter the sum of 1,473 million pesos, represented as follows: 1,430 million for the initial disbursement of the twelve,559 million, and 42,764 for the 804 million of December 18.
This patrimonial detriment is also considered by the definition of the RAE as “an injury to public assets, represented by the impairment, decrease, harm, loss, detriment or deterioration of public assets or resources, due to uneconomic, ineffective, inefficient and inopportune fiscal management”. The rooster doesn’t crow any clearer.
And who believed it, it was precisely a former secretary of the Hurtado administration and Mayor Aranda who from the beginning of the work foresaw what was going to happen. Óscar Berbeo, in an interview with him on an FM Noticias program on February 7, 2023, said that the works had no “The time is not enough to deliver it, the property management has not been done, neither has the real estate part. Wherever you review the times, they do not allow you to deliver the work, we hope that the administration will give us clarity on the issue.“, and added that “The purchase of land nor the issue of valuation were clear, the complete project will not be delivered, it will be in phases, first the viaducts, then the roundabouts and at the end the depressed“. And precisely, that happened.
The intervention speaks
“From the first month of the start of the work we began to make complaints about the delays, and we recorded all the information in the respective reports that we present monthly to the Municipality,” said Francisco Retrepo, legal representative of the firm intervening in the 60 bridge project.
And in fact, the auditor’s office has presented, so far, eight work progress reports, all of them critical and with objections and warnings about the irregular manner in which the work was carried out. “Precisely based on these reports, the Municipality made the decisions that we all know: initially the declaration of non-compliance with the contract, then the fine of four billion to the bridge contractor, and finally the call to liquidate the contract.” , Restrepo specifies when justifying the work carried out by the firm he represents in the face of the progress of works on the failed bridge.
When asked about the resources received and, if they are justified compared to the work carried out, he responds that so far the auditing company has received 1,800 million pesos, and points out that within the audit contract items are established such as having vehicles available, equipment of surveyors, engineers, laboratories, administrative personnel, personnel specialized in financial management and operational personnel, among others.
Restrepo clarifies that given the difficulties that arose in the development of the works contract, known to all, it was necessary to request the modification of the payment method of the audit contract based on its execution, protected by Law 80. of 1993, and the conditions established by Colombia Compra Eficiente in the standard specifications for audit contracts (law 2022 of 2020), to give independence and autonomy to the audits, so that they are not appendices of the contractors, establish forms of monthly payments .
The accounts don’t add up
Another fact, of the many that draws attention in the case of the 60 bridge, is the statement made by Mayor Johana Aranda and her mentor, former Mayor Andrés Hurtado, in the sense that only three billion pesos have been invested ($3,000,000.oo), in the failed work, when in reality the figures are different.
If we take into account that an advance of three billion pesos ($3,000,000.oo) was made to the contractor, 1,800 million to the intervening firm, and the mysterious disbursement of 804 million on December 18, 2023, we have a total of five thousand 460 million pesos ($5,640,000.oo); That is, there is a difference of two thousand 604 million.
The accounts of the Mayor’s Office of Ibagué do not match the real sums of money that have come out of public funds.
And to top it all off, we have that the money given to the contractors, according to newspaper reports, was distributed among family businesses and friends of the contractors as follows:
The companies Apia Constructores SAS and Silso LTDA were given $1,077 million and $250 million, respectively. These companies turned out to be owned by Sergio Agudelo and Betsy Agudelo, son and wife of the contractor. That is, he was a ‘me with me’.
Likewise, the company Asfaltemos Tolima, related for many years to the former mayor of Ibagué, Jesús María ‘Chuco’ Botero, benefited from $400 million of the advance.”
This is the sad reality of the so-called mega bridge that the snake charmer Andrés Hurtado sold to the Ibaguereños.
