President Petro Addresses Colombia Amid Corruption Scandal

President Gustavo Petro has addressed Colombia in a televised speech to clarify the government’s stance on the corruption scandal in the National Unit for Disaster Risk Management (UNGRD).

The accusations involve the purchase of water tankers in the La Guajira department at exorbitant prices, which ultimately ended up being unusable. There are concerns that the embezzled funds could have been utilized to offer bribes to politicians to hasten the advancement of specific reforms advocated by the government.

The case erupted with full force last week, affecting some public officials and calling into question the legitimacy of the presidents of the two chambers of Congress, who were accused of accepting bribes.

In this context, the Colombian president began his message last night on television by asserting that “the fight against corruption is one of the causes I have fought for throughout my life.” Petro argued that he has always “sought and demanded transparency in the use of public resources in Colombia.”

Petro defends his fight against corruption

The head of state recalled that during his parliamentary career he exposed various corruption cases in the country. He cited cases such as the so-called “contracting carousel” that affected the construction of the TransMilenio in Bogota and the Odebrecht bribes—a scandal that touched all of Latin America and a significant part of the Colombian legislative power.

In this regard, he noted that as a congressman, he had denounced a third of the members of the country’s Congress for receiving bribes from paramilitary groups. “In multiple debates, I exposed how the usual corrupt politicians allied with drug traffickers to pass laws, reforms, and projects that sought nothing but to maintain a situation of injustice in the country,” the Colombian president pointed out.

Petro also addressed the investigations against his own son, Nicolas Petro, who is allegedly involved in the collection of illicit money for personal benefit and for his father’s 2022 presidential campaign. The president defended his actions, stating he was the first to request an investigation into the matter. “I not only speak out against corruption, I have fought to unravel it all my life,” he concluded, defending his commitment to exposing corrupt practices.

Petro denounces structural corruption in Colombia

In this regard, Gustavo Petro said that upon taking office nearly two years ago, he encountered what he already suspected: “a structural and professionalized corruption that has taken over several Colombian state institutions.” The president affirmed that it was his responsibility to dismantle this entrenched web of corruption in the institutions and national politics.

For this process, he highlighted the appointment of a “decent and completely independent” prosecutor, after months of battling with the previous attorney general, with whom Gustavo Petro had significant and constant political confrontations.

According to him, this fight against structural corruption has elicited a strong response from those who have benefited from it for decades, but it also exposed “a mechanism that is strengthening crime, corruption, and public insecurity,” the great, recognizable, and historic evils of Colombia.

Report of specific cases of corruption in public entities

The president referred to specific cases of mega-corruption affecting public entities. In this context, he denounced corruption in entities managing the pensions of teachers in the Colombian public system. Petro claimed that “trillions of pesos from the teachers and the Nation have been lost in a network of contractors that allow payments without invoicing. The network has been built over the years across different branches of public power and control bodies.”

He also denounced corruption in the country’s energy giant, Ecopetrol, where “the findings are profoundly alarming; tens of billions of dollars have left the national oil company to finance individuals, paramilitaries, and politics. Ecopetrol is the scene of the great embezzlement of the Nation, perpetually covered up by control bodies and without criminal investigation,” said the president.

The denunciation went further. According to him, over three decades, a corruption alliance “between political leaders, the Public Force, officials from the DIAN (Colombian tax authority), and customs that allow massive entry of smuggling” was woven. With this, the president asserted that “campaigns” of previous political chiefs have been constructed.

The UNGRD corruption case

After reviewing the history of major corruption networks affecting public organizations, Gustavo Petro referred to the current corruption scandal that has erupted in the UNGRD. The president claimed that corruption in this state entity “has been ongoing for years,” as in the institution, public money has been used for personal and illicit enrichment by many officials.

Regarding the scandal of the water tankers in La Guajira, Petro claims it was a consequence of the judicial annulment of his emergency decree in the department, which prevented the rapid and effective mobilization of public resources to address the climate emergency in the region.

The head of state requested the Prosecutor’s Office “to investigate all contracting by the UNGRD in the last 8 years.” President Petro also accused the former prosecutor, Francisco Barbosa, of ignoring information about corruption in that agency that his government had provided prior to the outbreak of the scandal.

“To remove the foundations of political power in Colombia”

To conclude his speech to the nation, the Colombian president stated that his government seeks “to remove the foundations of political power in Colombia,” with the aim of consolidating the “reforms that benefit the majority of Colombians and guarantee peace,” referring to the social reforms being discussed in Congress and his commitment to Total Peace with various illegal armed groups.

Facing this challenge to the national political system, Gustavo Petro again mentioned that the response from some sectors “includes the option (…) for a coup and institutional rupture,” alluding to attempts to use state power structures to torpedo his legislative action and proposals.

The televised message ended with a call to the citizens. “We will navigate through the storms and know that ultimately everything depends on the people,” said the president. Reiterating the appeal for popular mobilization, as he previously did on Labour Day, Petro stated that “being on the left is not a vaccine against corruption,” noting that this practice exists “in all parties and in all corners,” reaffirming his commitment to denounce and fight it.