2023-08-08 14:32:01
The former manager of Gustavo Petro’s campaign spoke for the first time about the possible entry of irregular money into the political project of the Historical Pact in 2022. Ricardo Roa, who is also the current president of Ecopetrol, maintained that the president’s son, Nicolás Petro, he did not officially have a position within the campaign.
“In the regions, the logistics coordinators never had the possibility of managing and collecting. Nicolás Petro was never the logistics coordinator of the campaign, within the campaign he was neither politically nor financially linked to a position,” Roa said in dialogue with Blu Radio.
Petro (son) was indicted for the alleged crimes of illicit enrichment and money laundering within the process carried out by the Prosecutor’s Office on his alleged links with the ex-narco Samuel Santander Lopesierra and the businessman Gabriel Hilsaco, who would have delivered about one billion pesos in cash to Nicolás P. for the coastal campaign.
However, Ricardo Roa’s version is that he was the only one authorized to raise money due to his status as national campaign manager and that the people who held positions in the regions did not have any type of authorization to make any type of economic decision. .
“The only person authorized to collect, manage signatures, contracts, open offices, authorize advertising was the national manager and that is why there were never more sectors locally. The campaign centralized advertising,” said the current president of the state oil company.
The official says that these policies were implemented because the campaign had “the million-dollar purpose of avoiding the entry of improper resources.” However, the campaign is dotted with two scandals of possible irregularities in financing: that of Nicolás Petro and that of the 15,000 million ex-ambassador Armando Benedetti.
“That is why I implemented a kind of control to avoid the maximum income of money (…) The people who by their own decision had collected resources were never authorized or collected because their origin was never authorized,” the official explained.
The ex-manager’s version is that the campaign was financed with money from traditional banks and cooperatives that lent 50,000 million pesos in credits managed in the three phases of the campaign. This amount corresponds to what was reported on the Cuentas Claras platform.
Ricardo Roa defends that he assumed the role of campaign manager from January 24, 2022, for which he argues that he can only be held responsible for the events that occurred after that date. The official, who was close to President Petro since his term as mayor of Bogotá, was the president’s right-hand man in managing finances.
Did Nicolás Petro move money behind the backs of Roa and his father?
The president’s son already stated that neither Roa nor his father had any knowledge of the money that Santander Lopesierra and Hilsaca were giving him to supposedly invest it in the Petro Presidente campaign on the Atlantic coast.
Nicolás P.’s version coincides with what was mentioned by his ex-partner, Day Vásquez, who also explained that the current head of state was unaware that both were coordinating with questioned figures to get hundreds of millions of pesos that would supposedly be used to hold events and move votes.
However, Petro (son) held an important role within the political project of the Historical Pact in the Atlantic because he had been a candidate for the Governor of Human Colombia in 2019 and was serving as a deputy for that department in the period that the campaign took place. of his father, thanks to the seat that the Opposition Statute gave him.
Despite this connection, Ricardo Roa now maintains that Nicolás Petro did not hold a direct position in the team of the now president Gustavo Petro.
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