A Bogota judge ordered the 14-day imprisonment of Colombia’s finance minister, Mauricio Cardenas, for ignoring a number of rulings that obligated him to secure the pay of former hospital workers.
The plaintiffs sued the Ministry of Finance, asking a judge to force the government to pay wages and benefits that were not paid after the seven hospital workers were laid off by Bogota’s now-defunct Materno Infantil and San Juan de Dios hospitals.
The Minister was forced to assure the payment of the fired hospital workers, which he neglected to do. Consequently, the judge ordered him two days of jail time per failed order.
Cardenas has the right to appeal the judge’s decision and announced on Tuesday he will “in order to avoid that this [incarceration] takes place. We’ll see what this is about, what the cases are and defend ourselves,” he told Blu Radio.
