Colombia seizes assets of firm behind disastrous dam project
April 22, 2021
Colombia’s Comptroller Generals on Monday ordered to seize an engineering firm whose “visionary” late founder conceived the disastrous Hidroituango hydroelectric dam.
The Comptroller General ordered to seize 13 bank accounts and 12 real estate properties of Integral SA, which designed the Hidroituango dam that nearly collapsed in 2018, months before completion.
Another dynasty in ruins
According to the fiscal watchdog, the government contractors will have to pay $1.7 billion (COP4.2 trillion) for the disastrous project that was initially presented by co-founder Jose Tejada in 1969.
The fiscal measures seek to recover damages allegedly caused by the disastrous work of the company whose co-founder is considered “one of the most prestigious engineers in Colombia” by the Medellin Chamber of Commerce.
February 1, 2021
Medellin‘s notoriously corrupt elite backed the city’s most powerful business giant after one of its foundations admitted it fraudulently sought a $2.8 million (COP10 billion) grant meant for poor children.
Mayor Daniel Quintero‘s attack against the so-called Antioquia Business Group (GEA) came after a failed attempt to remove the former anti-corruption advocate from power.
To make things worse for the unregistered business giant, its Clara Cristina foundation admitted to falsifying a municipal document that would grant the 60-year-old NGO a contract to provide school lunches to the city’s poor.
The reputation of the business conglomerate had already been going downhill after member businesses like Bancolombia and Cementos Argos were convicted for making a profit from Colombia’s armed conflict through land dispossession.