Colombia’s Foreign Ministry is in turmoil after its secretary general signed off on a $150 million (COP599 billion) contract without the approval from the acting minister.
In a stunning move, the foreign ministry’s secretary general, Jose Antonio Salazar, granted the firm Thomas Greg & Sons a contract to provide passports while acting Foreign Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo was in Switzerland.
President Gustavo Petro immediately dismissed Salazar, claiming on social media platform Twitter that the contract was “corrupt.”
The dismissal came a month after the Inspector General’s Office suspended Foreign Minister Alvaro Leyva for revoking what Petro called a “corrupt contract.”
Leyva’s replacement, acting Foreign Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo, suggested that his former secretary general may have committed fraud by revoking the foreign minister’s decision to revoke the contract.
In a press statement, Murillo said that the $150 million promised to Thomas Greg & Sons isn’t in the Foreign Ministry’s budget for the coming year.
Acting Foreign Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo
The Petro administration has tried to revoke the contract since last year after competitors accused Thomas Greg & Sons of rigging the bidding process.
Thomas Greg & Sons was the only firm that ended up bidding for the contract.
The government opened a renewed bidding process that allowed the participation of multiple possible passport providers that would reduce the cost of passports by almost $50 million.
Salazar’s decision automatically ended this process, however.
Shortly after Salazar’s controversial move, Thomas Greg & Sons said that it had begun producing the passports and would sign the contract on Monday next week.