They demand the resignation of the manager of the National Printing Company for allegedly directing a millionaire contract

The union of workers of the Colombian National Printing Company SINTRAIMPRENAL denounced an alleged case of corruption within the entity, for two contracts of more than 24 billion pesos that, they say, were directed by the newcomer manager Álvaro Echeverri Castrillón.

In the last week, several union members and workers covered the headquarters of the Printing Press with posters calling for the manager to resign, such as “be a corrupt manager Don't steal more! ” and held a demonstration with slogans and vuvuzelas inside the building, located in the El Salitre sector, western Bogotá.

The contracts were signed for the acquisition of 2,100 tons of bond paper and for the printing, storage and distribution of more than 4.7 million books from the 'Todos a Aprender' program of the Ministry of Education that are addressed to more than 14,472 educational institutions, according to the newspaper El Tiempo.

The union assures that the contracts were addressed, that is, that from the manager's office the specifications of the contracts would have been created in such a way that the only companies that could fulfill them were previously established companies, which in this case would correspond to Ditar SA and Quad Graphics Colombia S.A.S.

The union, according to the newspaper El Tiempo, says that manager Echeverri Castrillón was two months before the start of hiring at Ditar's headquarters in Barranquilla and, when he sent the proposal, he accelerated the process for submitting bids even above the review of the contracting committee, an order that aired on December 22 almost at 11:00 in the evening.

It was one of the members of the recruitment committee that initiated complaints of irregularities against manager Echeverri, after she was allegedly assaulted by him. According to the broadcaster Mariana Néstor Bojacá, president of the union, on December 22, the head of the legal adviser's office approached him to denounce abuse with gender violence against her “because she opposed approving in a Contracting Committee a monitoring contract that the manager wanted to direct to a company” of Barranquilla.

“He adds that I don't play crazy, that I'm old, that what happens is that I'm well embalmed. He refers to me as an ignorant and brute person to other managers, degrading my image as a professional and as a woman,” said the affected official in the letter sent to the union, as quoted by RCN Radio.

This surveillance contract was declared void because the directive opposed contracting and from that moment it initiated the contract for the program 'All to Learn', which has been held annually for several years, but which this time presented a different process.

In this contract, which was already traditional, it was divided between the purchase of paper and printing and distribution, in which according to Bojacá, a company that is a distributor and intermediary but not a producer, which is Ditar and which would have also had cost overruns of more than 40%, benefited.

In the process there are several more inconsistencies. As Bojacá told Mariana, at the time of the contract, the rolls had already been sent from the United States. In addition, these were tailored to the Quad press, with which the printing contract was signed, which would have led to waste if it were assumed by other companies.

The rolls would have also been purchased at 6,000 pesos per kilo of bond paper when the union claims that 2,830 pesos were negotiated at previous suppliers. The Ministry of the Interior has already initiated actions, which have led to a delay in the fulfillment of the contract, with members of the other supervisory bodies such as the Comptroller's Office, which has already started monitoring the case.

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