2023-12-17 14:59:23
Foreign Minister Álvaro Leyva is at the center of a huge fight: the passport tender. But this Friday, his position, which he has maintained for months, suffered a severe setback. The Conciliation Committee, which had been created for this controversy after declaring void the tender in which the company Thomas Greg & Sons participated, assured that the best was an agreement or negotiated solution with the company. The reason they gave has to do with avoiding a million-dollar lawsuit against the State that the company could file and which it would surely win.
The matter had Leyva on one side, who – obeying the orders of President Petro – remained firmly committed to not reconciling anything with Thomas Greg & Sons, but to the surprise of many, it was the same officials from the Foreign Ministry who took the decision. contrary decision. One of them was Germán Calderón España, the same lawyer from that ministry, who had been appointed by the chancellor.
“I feel absolutely solid. We have to look at a policy that consists of the monopolies that have been set up in Colombia over the years, and that are absolutely millionaires, cannot advance in the country.” | Photo: juan carlos sierra – week
“He was my lawyer until, without consulting, he decided to say that we had to reconcile with Thomas Greg & Sons. He was not a friend of conciliar until 9:30 pm last Wednesday, when SEMANA interviewed me. He was accompanying me at my residence that day. He had some lost papers and he gave them to me. He received a call, told Juan Carlos Losada that his wife was sick and left. I asked where Germán was and they told me that he had left,” the chancellor told SEMANA.
The senior official does not understand the change in Calderón Spain’s position. “He was not a friend to conciliation. “He never told me,” he said.
The chancellor does not explain why this change of position occurred so suddenly. “Imagine, that’s why you have to find out. I have not heard from him again, simply that he showed up and contradicted himself in everything he had previously stated. Why did I know his thoughts? Because he was my agent,” he said.
“The agent turned around on me leaving my apartment,” he said.
At the hearing, he claimed to have expressed the will of the Conciliation Committee, which is to reconcile and award the contract, which is why they asked to reverse the resolution that declared the tender void. “That, under the duty of confidentiality, I transmitted the majority will of the members of the Conciliation Committee of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its Revolving Fund,” he said.
On the other hand, the chancellor told SEMANA that he will remain firm in his position. “Naturally, I am not going to conciliate, that is the decision and I assume responsibility. I reiterate: they make some considerations and recommend, but those recommendations are not binding. I am the person who decides. An investigation is going to be opened and it is what the president has requested to find out how the whole process went… Not a council. “It is my absolutely inalienable position,” he said.
Gustavo Petro, president of Colombia. | Photo: Daniel Reina-Semana
Leyva assures that the officials’ decision does not weaken his role as chancellor. “Not at all. Truth, reason and law do not weaken one. It is a recommendation they made and is not binding. My resolutions are very solid. That is the position of the minister, who has not stopped being a minister. “I reflect the thoughts of President Gustavo Petro,” he said.
And he clarified that in the end he is the one who makes the decision. And he explained why he declared the tender void. “Numerous questions came to clarify. They were so numerous that it was necessary to find out what was happening. For this reason, he first suspended himself. After having attended to and learned everything he asked, we said: “Wait a minute, this needs to be reviewed.” And she declared herself void with the legal norms in her hands. It’s not that the minister felt like it. I was a constituent, we have to be guarantees, give more than one the opportunity. In the last 20 years, the same one (Thomas Greg & Sons) has always won. Regarding passports, I came to know that it has been the same since 1970. That cannot be like that. There are norms that speak of the general interest,” he said.
Leyva pointed out that the decision of his officials to reconcile with Thomas Greg & Sons does not weaken him as chancellor and that for this reason he will not stop being so. “I reflect the thoughts of President Gustavo Petro,” he said. | Photo: Supplied to Semana API
He added that for the president the tenders should not be from a single bidder, even though this circumstance is legal. “We have come to the conclusion with President Petro that this cannot be the case. I don’t know if you know: the money involved is of such a nature that one sees it and blushes. Since 2005, Thomas Greg & Sons had 473 contracts with more than 100 national and regional entities, at least more than 386,000 million pesos. These are figures from the Cuestión Pública portal.”
Leyva referred to the controversial passport tender. | Photo: Getty Images
And he added that he knows that million-dollar lawsuits are coming, but that he does not anticipate, like many, the defeat of the State in the courts. “Everything can happen in the vineyard of the Lord. And how about we win? The constitutional arguments are absolutely valid. Or is the law above the Constitution? No way. Or above the general interest, of being a guarantee, of the need for there to be two proponents in the end? What we are doing is a call for free competition.”
In Congress, the chancellor was summoned to a political control debate. His answers were criticized. Leyva defends himself and says that they did not let him speak and that he will take everything before the prosecutor Francisco Barbosa. | Photo: Esteban vegA la-rotta-semana
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