Bogota attorney Sandra Morelli was appointed as the nation’s comptroller general by a majority vote in the Colombian Congress, and has promised to ensure transparency and independence during her tenure, reports Caracol.
The Comptroller General’s Office will be “transparent and fair … and will take necessary measures when required,” said Morelli.
Morelli will take over from Julio Cesar Turbay Quintero as the highest form of fiscal control in Colombia, and said that the independent institution would maintain its autonomy from the executive.
However, the newly-appointed comptroller said that there will be input and participation from all the political parties which hold Congress seats.
Morelli, who will hold the position until 2014, won by a large majority with 222 votes. Alberto Rojas was a distant second with ten votes.
Votes from the Partido de la U, the Conservative Party, PIN, and Cambio Radical gave Morelli her victory. The Liberal Party voted against her, ignoring the president’s request to back the “national unity” candidate. Leftist Polo Democratico Party abstained from the vote.
Sandra Morelli graduated from Bogota’s Universidad Externado of Colombia with a law degree, and went on to study administrative law and management at the University of Bologna in Italy. She also studied at the Pantheon-Assas in Paris and in the southern French city of Montpellier, as well as at Yale in the U.S.
The new comptroller has written many books, including “The Constitutional Court: An institutional role to be defined.”