Colombian Minister resigns after corruption case involving multi-million dollar deal

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Colombian Minister of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Karen Abudinen resigned on Thursday (9) after a corruption scandal linked to alleged irregularities in a multimillion deal to connect over 7,000 rural schools to the Internet.

“Mr. President, I respectfully present to you my unconditional resignation as Minister of Information Technologies and Communications,” the Minister yesterday wrote in a letter addressed to Colombian President Iván Duque.

Last Monday, the Prosecutor’s Office announced a disciplinary investigation into Abudinen to determine her responsibility in the irregularities reported in the pre-contractual stage of the public tender called “Digital Centers,” as well as in the signing and execution of the contract entered into with the Temporary Union of Town Centers of Colombia.

Abudinen yesterday assured that she acted “with honesty and transparency” and reiterated that she was the one who denounced the corruption of those who “defrauded society.”

“I am convinced that once the disruption unleashed by this crisis is overcome, Colombian society will have sufficient elements to allow them to see the real culprits,” she said in her statement.

CONTROVERSIAL CONTRACT

To start implementing the contract, for a total amount of over 1 billion pesos (US$263 million), the government granted Centros Poblados, one of the two contractors, an advance payment of 70 million pesos.

However, local media such as W Radio disclosed that the contractor, which had no experience or ability to comply with the agreement, presented 3 fake bank guarantees in the bidding process and after receiving the advance payment, hardly any progress has been made in the execution of the contract.

As a result, the Minister last Friday underwent a censure motion in the Chamber of Deputies, called by opposition legislators who demanded her resignation.

They argued in the session that even if Abudinen had no part in the “network” of Centros Poblados, she at least was guilty of negligence as she was unable to comply with one of her duties, which is to “protect public funds.”

Once the scandal broke out, the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MinTIC) declared the expiration of the contract last August, for which the contractor was fined 39.015 billion pesos.

Abudinen said last August 24 that the digital centers project will now be developed with ETB NET Colombia Conectada, a joint venture between ETB and Skynet, part of the original bidding.

Likewise, the Minister assured that the government is recovering the advance payment money that, according to information last week, is allegedly in accounts not only in Colombia but also in the United States.

DUQUE’S DEFENSE

President Duque fiercely defended the Minister, despite the adverse effect the corruption scandal has had on his government and his party, the right-wing Centro Democrático, with less than 9 months to go before the 2022 presidential elections.

“Minister Karen Abudinen is an honorable woman, a hard-working woman and a woman who has always had as her banner integrity and great executive capacity in the public sector, and she has proven it,” Duque had said in a radio interview.