Last Thursday, the Minister of Communications, Félix Alvarado, revealed irregularities in the General Directorate of Roads (DGC) related to the awarding of the project to repair the Palín – Escuintla highway and accused the former head of that agency of interfering to benefit a company, and as a result of that, five dismissals were confirmed on Friday, July 12.
Alvarado explained that initially under the state of Calamity that had been declared, but did not obtain the necessary votes in Congress, 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 foreseen by the CIV, which generated doubts.
For this reason, according to Alvarado, a plan B was put into action, 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.
That same Thursday, the dismissal of Gilberto de Jesús Guerra and Víctor Rosales as director and deputy director of the DGC, respectively, was confirmed.
However, this Friday, the Ministry of Communications, Infrastructure and Housing (CIV) reported that Flor Esmeralda Hernández Pelicó, former head of the Department of Purchases and Imports; Iris Nicolette Gutiérrez Serrano, former head of the Department of Human Resources; and Karla Fabiola Lara Morales, deputy executive director III, were also removed from their positions.
The Ministry of Communications stated that Gilberto Guerra was appointed as interim director of Roads by former Minister Jazmín de la Vega and that due to his knowledge and technical experience in public administration he was confirmed as director on June 27, “with the invitation to recover the dignity of the workers that has been so battered within that department, which he did not fulfill.”
“He was dismissed because he illegally intervened in the qualification committee within the process of awarding the repair of the Palín – Escuintla highway, in a malicious and corrupt manner, by wanting to weaken the transparency with which the current government administration works,” says the CIV.
Failed
The dismissals occurred at a time when the Congress of the Republic rejected the state of calamity declared by the Government to deal with the emergencies caused by the rains.
With 95 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, as of Friday, July 12, has left 18 people dead.
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), 515 roads have been affected and 40 bridges have been damaged due to heavy rains.
Last April, the Guatemalan Congress also rejected another state of calamity proposed by Arévalo de León, with which he attempted to deal with the fire season that devastated thousands of hectares of forest throughout the territory.
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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