Almost two years after the initiation of the criminal process, the governor of Cesar (r) Luis Alberto Monsalvo Gneccoaccused of alleged corruption in the School Feeding Program, PAE, is already awaiting a sense of ruling that determines if he will be convicted or acquitted. This Thursday the evidentiary debate culminated in the Special Chamber of Instruction of the Supreme Court of Justice.
In the closing arguments, the 11th prosecutor delegated before the Court, Julio Ospino, requested that the president was sentenced for his imminent violation of the law and lack of planning to execute the PAE in its first departmental administrative period in the year 2015.
He further explained that his tests would have shown the lack of pre-contract planning that not only affected the contractual structure, but also led to the violation of the principles of economy, responsibility and legality that govern public contracting.
“Disdain is shown, the lack of adequate planning according to the norm, logic and common sense. The information of the 2014 that is said to have been taken into account for previous studies by these people is different from that available in the second quarter of 2015”said prosecutor Julio Ospino.
In the same way, he criticized the way in which the government administration established the food prices.
“There are protruding failures in the identification of the cost of the raw material in such a way that it is not possible to explain where the applied value came from, such as that of milk, bread and liver, which led to an important accumulation of foods far exceed average value”pointed out the representative of the accusing entity.
For example, the value of the liver in the government budget was $65.460,00while in the DANE bulletin of the time it was $12.115,00that is, a difference of $53.345,00. In the same way, the price of the green banana in the governor’s budget was in $4.627,00 and the one in the DANE bulletin the price was in $561,00that is, a difference of $4.066,70.
In addition, it would have benefited a group of people to keep the contract. Thus, the Prosecutor’s Office asked the judge to sentence Luis Alberto Monsalvo for the crimes of embezzlement in favor of third parties and contract without compliance with legal requirements.
This request was joined by the representative of the Public Ministry in the audience that was attended by the governor.
THE DEFENSE
defense attorney Jose Luis Barcelo Camacho, for his part, he emphasized that the guidelines of the Ministry of Education were taken into account in the program.
Barceló Camacho affirmed that the Prosecutor’s Office based many irregularities that it had alleged on subjective views.
“The Prosecutor’s Office insists that it was strange that in the previous studies it had been indicated that approximately 1,748 handlersbut only in the specifications had it been mentioned that the operator had to offer 350 handlers that they meet a certain requirement… The conclusion is very simple, as the technical guidelines had already been explained and in relation to the need, it was determined that the operators should have the necessary personnel during the different stages of the execution of the contract for which have a number of manipulators that guarantee quality at all stages of the process. However, the number of handlers varied according to multiple factors”explained Barceló Camacho.
He specified that the president made the appropriate control within the framework of the law and his behavior had not been fraudulent, but he trusted the delegated activities.
The last word will be Special Chamber of Instruction of the Supreme Court of Justice that in the next hearing it is expected that it will give the sense of failure.