Bogota’s district comptroller will investigate over 200 service contracts with a total value of almost $6 million signed by the administration of Bogota’s former mayor, Gustavo Petro, in January of 2014.
Comptroller Diego Ardila plans to investigate 236 service contracts that were signed by the secretary general of Bogota’s mayor’s office in the beginning of 2014, according to Colombia’s Caracol Radio. Ardila said they seemed suspicious because most were new and came in a concentrated time in January.
“It calls attention because they are new contracts. 196 new [contracts] in the last week of January of this year for a value of $5.6 million,” said Ardila.
The governing administration was led at that time by former Mayor Gustavo Petro, who has since been removed from office over a garbage collection controversy in 2012.
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Ardila acknowledged that some of the largest individual contracts totaled well over $100,000 (split up into monthly increments). He also mentioned that the number of contracts has increased dramatically since 2012.
“Between 2012 and 2013 there was a growth of 17.68% in the number of contracts, from 104,822 service contracts in 2012 to 123,359 in 2013,” claimed Ardila. He continued to say that the value of these contracts increased on average almost 12% between 2012 and 2013.
The comptroller also intends to investigate a possible violation of Colombia’s “Guarantees Law,” which safeguards against electoral fraud, noting that it is possible that some of the contracts issued by the mayor’s office were granted in return for electoral support.