After the Congress of the Republic rejected the state of calamity decreed by the Executive to address emergencies caused by the rains, President Bernardo Arévalo and the Minister of Communications, Félix Alvarado, revealed alleged irregularities within the Ministry of Communications, Infrastructure and Housing (CIV), where they intended to favor a company with the repair work on the Palín – Escuintla highway.
As a result, it was confirmed that on Thursday, July 11, Gilberto de Jesús Guerra and Víctor Rosales were dismissed as interim director and deputy director of the General Directorate of Roads (DGC).
In a press conference on Wednesday, July 11, Arévalo criticized the actions of 95 deputies who did not support the state of emergency and pointed out that this group continues to be part of the “corrupt minority” that is not willing to put aside “its privileges” and that instead “prefer to see a country in ruins.”
The president added that his government “came to put an end to the criminal structures of the country and we are touching the most corrupt fibers,” suggesting that this is the reason why he has not achieved the support of the Legislative Body, where his party’s bench is not in the majority.
Arévalo said that they would reveal the actions of a criminal structure that operates from the CIV, an accusation that was seconded by Alvarado, who directly pointed to the interim director of the General Directorate of Roads (DGC) -Gilberto de Jesús Guerra-.
Alvarado explained that initially under the state of Calamity a contract was awarded for more than Q100 million for the repair of the Palín – Escuintla highway, but the event was cancelled early Thursday morning, because only one company offered for the total amount provided by the CIV, which generated doubts.
For this reason, according to the minister, a plan B was put in place, which consisted of holding the same event with the same specifications and in which three companies made offers, “all well below the original offer”, which ranged “between a third and a half of what it cost”, “but the Director General of Roads did everything necessary and possible to hinder the process of forming the -qualifying- board.”
He added that when the qualifying board was already formed, “the director of the Roads Department intervened illegally in the process, removed one of the members, locked him in his office and when that member left he retracted his participation, despite the fact that he had already participated in the review of the offers and had already issued a judgment on them,” which forced the event not to take place.
“Today, July 11, I dismissed the director and deputy director of the General Directorate of Roads of the Ministry of Communications, Infrastructure and Housing,” Alvarado confirmed.
He added that a month and a half ago he asked the DGC staff to “restore the dignity of the staff, which has been so severely damaged within the Ministry,” but people “who have no scruples today decided to betray their own dignity, they decided that it was more important to twist justice in a bidding process that we were trying to do in a transparent manner to respond to the reconstruction of the sinkhole at kilometer 44 of the Palín – Escuintla highway.”
Alvarado said that lawsuits once morest people who are implicated in irregularities are already underway and that is why he preferred not to go into the matter in depth.
Failed
The Congress of the Republic rejected on Thursday the state of calamity declared by President Bernardo Arévalo de León, in order to obtain the necessary resources to address the national emergency caused by the rainy season in the country.
With 96 votes once morest, the deputies, from opposition parties, rejected the measure with which the Government of Arévalo de León intended to access emergency funds for one month to deal with the crisis in roads and rural areas caused by the heavy rains that have hit Guatemala for the past 6 weeks.
The state of calamity was declared by Arévalo de León on July 8, in response to a rainy season that has left 17 people dead as of Thursday.
The ruling party deputy David Illescas said during the legislative session that the opposition parliamentarians did not approve the state of calamity because it did not contemplate “bribes” or individual “benefits” for the legislators.
Opposition deputies such as Sandra Jovel, from the Valor party, said that the emergency can be addressed with “the ordinary budget” allocated to each state entity.
According to data from the National Coordinator for Disaster Reduction (Conred), 505 roads have been affected and 44 bridges have been damaged due to heavy rains.
Guatemalan laws indicate that a “state of calamity” is a mechanism that allows access to emergency funds from institutions responsible for dealing with crises of different kinds.
The National Institute of Seismology, Volcanology, Meteorology and Hydrology (Insivumeh) has warned that the rainy season in Guatemala might extend into November and that a new wave from the east is expected to enter the country next week, intensifying rainfall in the Caribbean and the north of the country.
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