Olmedo López, former director of the National Unit for Disaster Risk Management (UNGRD), has unleashed a severe storm in the government of Gustavo Petro due to his explosive accusations about acts of corruption involving ministers and other officials of the government of ‘change’.
In a report on the Olmedo López scandal, the Minister of Finance, Ricardo Bonilla, ended up being implicated. López stated in an interrogation before the Supreme Court of Justice that, at the time, there were meetings in the Presidency of the Republic, in the Ministry of Finance and in his office, where High-ranking officials of the national government gave him orders to rig and award multimillion-dollar contracts to several congressmen.
In light of these allegations of corruption in the Petro Government, politicians are debating the actions that the national government is taking.
Additionally, the councilor recalled that Olmedo López was the natural person who contributed the most money to Petro’s presidential campaign in 2018, about $300 million. He also indicated that López has been an anti-mining leader and that is why he was driving the anti-mining agenda within the current government.
“He (Olmedo López) was the manager of Clara López Obregón’s campaign, a person who is also very close to Petro and then director of UNGRD, where all the president’s friends entered as contractors,” he stressed.
On the other hand, Councilman Briceño stressed that President Petro has a huge responsibility in the midst of the scandal uncovered by a figure who is so close to him, since his “political project is tainted by corruption in the National Unit for Disaster Risk Management.
“I don’t believe the story that everything happened behind his back, that he had no idea or way of verifying what was happening,” he said.
In this regard, Briceño also pointed out that during 2023 at UNGRD, ordered more than $596 million in contractsa figure that exceeds half a billion pesos, a budget addition was also made that was made public in the Congress of the Republic for more than $200 billion.
Briceño reiterated that President Gustavo Petro does have political responsibility and therefore must respond politically with his project, in addition to “facing the citizens.”
Finally, Councilman Daniel Briceño stated that the country cannot allow President Petro to “wash his hands when he was the one who appointed the officialsit was he who was absolutely aware of everything and was the one who kept Olmedo López in his position when the scandal broke out, he continues to keep Minister Ricardo Bonilla and kept former Minister Velasco until the last moment.”
