Since coming to power, they are writing a dark chapter in Colombian politics. They distance themselves from decency, austerity and transparency. In their wake, they leave an indelible mark of excess, extravagance, waste and corruption. And they don’t waste time, as if the world were going to end tomorrow. They haven’t let a week go by without scandals.
This is how “the change” began. For example, Petro and Francia came demanding the purchase of appliances and lingerie for more than 170 million pesos: 27 million televisions, 4 million goose down, 500 thread count sheets, digital blenders, silver cutlery, and other luxuries. . The presidential and vice presidential residence market costs us 30 million pesos.
They created a ministry (of Equality) with a leafy bureaucracy, for which they rented offices for 2.7 billion pesos. Petro’s (39) and France’s trips abroad, with his numerous entourages, have cost more than 40 billion, contributing to spreading the contamination virus across the planet.
And what was recently known: the entourage of the ‘first lady’ Verónica Alcocer – makeup artist, costume designer, masseuse, photographer, her best friend and a personal advisor – costs more than a billion. The new fleet of 31 luxurious vehicles, acquired by Chancellor Leyva, cost 6.24 billion pesos. For the newspaper ‘Vida’ with 500 thousand copies, they paid 653 million; There they published false and disguised figures from Petro’s management. And renovations were invented in the presidential houses, for 10.6 billion pesos.
The rental of a house (50 square meters) in Davos, Switzerland, for four days, with a cost of more than a million dollars, deserves a separate chapter. The FM asked the owner of the neighboring house on air and he confirmed that the value of his is 170 thousand dollars. In addition, they spent more than 1.5 billion pesos on: translator, dancers, barista, jipao, LED screen, support staff, accommodation and food. And, for the coffee tasting, they hired a Spanish company. Some media investigated that behind the big business was Juan Carlos Montes, a fugitive contractor of the hole-filling machine in Bogotá and the one who recorded Petro in hiding, receiving and packing money in a bag.
For this reason, Petro’s speech justifying his tax reform, which this year will cost Colombians blood, causes outrage; and the increase in gasoline, which, in 15 months, rose 62 percent; and the announcement of a new tax, with the sophistry of lowering taxes on companies and raising them on individuals, who last year contributed 19 billion pesos. But, the execution of the investment budget is the lowest in history, which indicates that the public treasury is going into scandalous expenses.
I hope the control agencies act, because the brutal waste and corruption with the public budget cannot be forgiven. And it is up to us Colombians to defend the country in the streets; and denounce the congressmen who approve everything, in exchange for jam.