At the end of 2017, the Prosecutor's Office found that two senior officials of the National Savings Fund (FNA), the financial institution responsible for managing the layoffs of public employees and official workers, irregularly sold a portfolio of 131,433 million pesos for 68,435 million pesos, which means a loss of 62. 998 million for the institution.
The officials, meticulously and calculately planted the business with total legality, managed to modify the Credit Risk Management System (SARC), in order to prevent irregularities from being noticed in the transaction, says Semana magazine.
Financial Vice President Milton Bustos and Vice President of Risk Adriana Rojas, officials who still work at the National Savings Fund, were recently brought before a judge for allegation of contract charges without compliance with legal requirements and embezzlement for appropriation.
One of the firms that was allegedly most favored is Disproyectos, since it was not even nominated for participation in the selection process. In addition, investigators from the Prosecutor's Office show that this company did not have sufficient cash flow to assume contractual responsibilities, since its assets did not exceed 1 billion pesos; this is illogical for it to be able to take over the business. Another point to keep in mind is that they did not demonstrate experience in portfolio collection.
To cover up this favor, Vice President Rojas invited 7 other firms months earlier, knowing that they were not going to keep the contract, but this allowed her to prove that Disproyectos was the firm that best represented the interests of the National Savings Fund. The official even accepted a request not to constitute the guarantee required by the committee for the performance of the contract.
Finally, Adriana Rojas ended up approving the offer in favor of Disproyectos personally, consciously omitting the analysis of the firm's ability to pay to determine if it could comply. In addition, Semana points out that it was so clear was the intention to assign it directly that it did not compete the offer of Disproyectos with other firms, according to the Prosecutor's Office.
The name of Vice President Milton Bustos appears here, since he was decisive for the operation since he was fully aware of it, and he did not object to avoid the economic collapse that the entity suffered. These actions lost more than 60 billion pesos to the National Savings Fund when the portfolio was sold.
The vice-presidents pleaded not guilty and acted in accordance with the law. The Office of the Prosecutor, for its part, has no doubt that the actions of the officials “are aberrant”, liars in their entirety and that in the process of the sale procedure they incurred capital detriment to the National Savings Fund. The judicial body will prepare the indictment to be issued in the coming days.
These figures are very similar to those of the scandal that ended with the resignation of the former Minister of Information and Communication Technologies, Karen Abudinen, over the “loss” of 70 billion pesos in a contract for the connectivity and education of children in the most vulnerable schools in the country, with the Centros Poblados consortium .
The president of the FNA, María Cristina Londoño, assured Semana that the events occurred during the administration of former President Helmuth Barros and that the respective measures were taken to avoid the loss of resources due to the contract.
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