Colombia’s inspector general on Tuesday gave his blessing to a state of emergency issued by President Juan Manuel Santos in December to deal with floods that have affected 2.3 million Colombians.
In a press statement published on the Inspector General’s Office website, IG Alejandro Ordoñez asked the Constitutional Court to approve the government’s emergency measures.
According to Ordoñez, the state of emergency serves to respond “in an exclusive, precise and adequate way to a notorious public and national calamity caused by a global climate phenomenon whose devastating consequences were supervening and irresistible.”
Santos issued the state of emergency in December to release funds for immediate aid for victims of the floods and to allocate money needed for the rebuilding of infrastructure that was destroyed in the floods.