There are many complaints of possible corruption that surround the Medellín Mayor’s Office and now the Attorney General’s Office has set its sights on three of them, opening formal investigations that might end in disciplinary measures for key people in the administration of Daniel Quintero . Even a couple of these investigations —EL COLOMBIANO learned— are already quite advanced in the Prosecutor’s Office.
Among the cases is the contracting of the Ministry of Education with Colombia Avanza for the attention of the food of the beneficiary children of the Good Start program, and where there was a minimum extra cost of 700 million pesos, with much less attention than that had presented in previous mayorships.
The Attorney General’s Office also took a look at the carelessness in which the city’s gardens fell, when in 2020 the Mayor’s Office took that contract from the Botanical Garden and handed it over to Metroparques, which expanded its corporate purpose in July 2020 for that mission. , under the argument that the pandemic had left his finances on the ground and he needed to receive new contracts, in addition to the fact that he supposedly had personnel to do the work. Months later, he subcontracted with the reforestation company El Libano for $3,900 million, in an assignment that left a lot to think regarding and the gardens sleeve by shoulder.
And, finally, the control entity —although it considered that there are no merits to open some points of the investigation requested by the watchdog Todos por Medellín— is investigating what happens with the contracts in the General Hospital, where it is being examined whether the entity You are buying goods that were the contractor’s obligation, which would constitute a capital loss.
For Piedad Patricia Restrepo, spokeswoman for the Todos por Medellín association, it is to celebrate that the Attorney General’s Office has finally looked at the complaints that citizens have brought to the control entities. “We are asking that it be understood how corruption works, that it is not just regarding doing a documentary analysis; you have to take into account the background, if there is direction or not, as would be happening with the General Hospital”.
Restrepo also points out that many of the cases that today rest in offices of the Attorney General’s Office and the Prosecutor’s Office previously passed through the Municipal Personería, however nothing happened with them. “We are very dissatisfied with the role of the Personería de Medellín, since it announces many investigations, but does not close any of them.”
And it is that there are several complaints that point out how the Personería sometimes neglects complaints of alleged corruption within the Mayor’s Office. Piedad Patricia Restrepo says: “We filed a complaint that they never received because they mightn’t find the emails; then they provided an account for shipping and that same account was closed due to low capacity. It’s unusual.”
Regarding these complaints, Mayor Daniel Quintero has been questioned several times by citizens and the media, however, there are never any explanations. We tell you what the Attorney General’s Office is investigating.
Customized contracts in the General?
The investigation was opened on September 1 once morest Mario Fernando Córdoba, director of the Medellín General Hospital, Erika María Pino, director of logistical support, and Tatiana María Arcila, supervisor of the contract for food services that the hospital signed in December. of 2020 for $12,466 million pesos with the Ser Colombia Corporation. This and another contract for the provision of the cleaning and maintenance service of the headquarters, signed in the same year for $13,422 million with the Asís Foundation, are the ones in which there have been notable irregularities according to the watchdog Todos por Medellín.
The first of these contracts, cleaning and maintenance, was signed in September 2020 between the General Hospital of Medellín and the Asís Association for a period of three years and two months, until December 31, 2023. The founders of Asís —Cruz Helena and Marleny Serna Arias— are sisters-in-law of Óscar Manuel Villegas, leader of a powerful clan that has had large contracts —and scandals— in the health sector in Antioquia.
In February 2019, the Asís Association appointed Daniela Serna Serna, niece of Villegas’s wife, as legal representative, who was in office until June 2020 when all members related to the Serna family were removed from the board.
A month later, with just a few days to go until the signing of the contract with the Fundación Asís, Daniela Serna was hired as an administrative assistant at the Hospital.
At the time, the supervisory questioned that for this agreement a private invitation had not been made public. The hospital invited three companies to participate, of which only the Asís Foundation was authorized, since one of the companies decided not to participate and the other was disqualified.
Regarding the other contract, the one for the provision of food services signed in December 2020 with the Corporación Ser Colombia for more than $13,000 million, the oversight alerted that the requirements of the call were tailored to the person who was finally chosen. For example, unlike what had been done in the previous call for the same purpose, this time recent experience in the food service was not required for third-level hospitals —such as the General Hospital— but it was reduced to second-level centers. level.
Todos por Medellín informed the Attorney General of these and other complaints that might mean irregularities in these hiring processes. However, following the preliminary investigation —which included a visit to the hospital, disciplinary inspections and review of official documents— the control entity dismissed ten of the possible irregular conducts presented by the oversight office. The only “disciplinary relevant” fact found by the Attorney General’s Office was that the Hospital would have acquired some goods —a stainless steel cart to transport food and 30 trays— that were an obligation of Ser Colombia and that cost the Hospital more than 30 million pesos. pesos that he should not have paid. Todos por Medellín has already filed an appeal to this resolution of the National Directorate of Special Investigations of the Attorney General’s Office.
Finger contract to feed the children?
Also on September 1, a disciplinary investigation was opened once morest Martha Alexandra Agudelo Ruiz, secretary of education for Medellín, and Lina María Gil Zapata, technical director of the Buen Comienzo program. This process also stems from a complaint made by Todos por Medellín. The oversight office had complained regarding a possible cost overrun of a contract signed between the municipality of Medellín and the Colombia Avanza Corporation for the attention of the family modality of Good Start in 2020 for more than $20,000 million pesos.
The oversight office denounced that, in order to favor the contractor, the Ministry of Education did not use the contracting modality established by law with non-profit entities —as it did with the other providers of the program— but rather used the figure contracting for provision of services. By using this contracting modality, the Municipality, says the oversight office, lost money. Well, Colombia Avanza did not have to make the counterpart contributions that the rest did. Likewise, Todos por Medellín denounced that Buen Comienzo was more flexible with the required requirements.
After carrying out the preliminary investigation —which began in January and ended in July of this year— the Attorney General’s Office decided to open an investigation once morest the two officials for participating in the preparation of the contract between the Municipality and Colombia Avanza, since it considered that a analysis broad enough to justify the contracting modality chosen. According to this entity, only the Colombian Institute of Family Welfare can directly contract this type of service with non-profit entities, so that the Mayor’s Office of Medellín had to celebrate this process through the merit contest modality.
Finally, the Attorney General’s Office considered that in the previous studies of the economic sector —where the relevance of the contract and its potential costs are analyzed—, in which Lina Gil participated, the complete analysis had not been done according to the Agency’s criteria. National Public Procurement Colombia Efficient Purchase.
The Financial Audit and Management report of the Municipality of the Comptroller of Medellín for 2020 found that the official budget of the agreement was overestimated in the value of food and that the budget of the food package was made for a global value and not taking into account the cost of each product. In this way, Colombia Avanza was able to change —or eliminate— some budgeted products for lower quality ones without this changing the value they received for each package.
Three “twin” proposals and the gardens adrift?
In this case, those who are being investigated are Natalia Urrego, secretary of physical infrastructure of Medellín, and Jorge Enrique Liévano Ospina, manager of Metroparques. The reason is the alleged irregularities in the agreement that this entity signed with the company Reforestadora el Libano SAS in November 2020, days following the Medellín Mayor’s Office took away the city’s pruning and gardening contract from the Botanical Garden —an entity that had done that work in the city for 48 years— to give it to Metroparques, whose experience in these tasks was nil. The value of the agreement between the Mayor’s Office and Metroparques was $5,250 million and that of the subcontract between Metroparques and Lebanon was $3,900 million (75% of the value of the original contract).
For this subcontracting, Metroparques privately invited -what appears to be a modus operandi in the Mayor’s Office- three companies to participate in the process: El Libano SAS, Construgeo SAS and Mascampo SAS According to Todos por Medellín, the three companies would have the same beneficiary in common, since apparently they belong to the same family group, which would mean collusion. Likewise, the oversight found that the offers presented by Construgeo and Mascampo were identical, what is known in the world of corruption as “twin offers”, for which a criminal process is currently open.
According to the order to open the disciplinary investigation issued by the Attorney General’s Office on August 26, the objective of the investigation is to determine whether the corporate purpose of Metroparques is in fact in accordance with the purpose of the contract signed with the Mayor’s Office, and also to determine whether In effect, there are or are not links between the partners of the SAS invited to participate in the agreement, and whether in fact two of the three proposals were “twins”.
According to the Single Business Registry (Rues) and one of the employment contracts of El Libano SAS —registered in Andes, Antioquia—, its manager is Luz Eliana Henao, who acts as legal representative of the company and is, therefore, the head in charge of its administrative management. Henao is the wife of Asdrúbal Vélez, a liberal leader from Andes, and the mother of Stiven Vélez, a municipal councilor for the same political current. According to Medellín councilor Daniel Duque, the Vélez Henao are part of the team of Luis Carlos Ochoa, deputy and president of this party in Antioquia, who has also publicly expressed his support for the current mayor of Medellín, Daniel Quintero.