The funds accumulated in the social security systems are usually large and are contributed in order to finance health, pensions and professional risks; And since payments will be made in the future as people get sick, have accidents or retire, some governments and businessmen are interested in using them with the argument of financing development instead of keeping them immobilized.
The former minister and former parliamentarian Hernando Agudelo Villa made large complaints to show the danger of the concentration of economic power, due to the risk that they would abuse the trust of savers and shareholders, even incurring legal infractions.
Agudelo Villa denounced the financial embezzlement caused by Jaime Michelsen Uribe, owner of Grupo Grancolombiano, with the acquisition of companies by abusively taking the savings that citizens had deposited in the Banco de Colombia, parent company of that conglomerate. And by abusing his power, he obtained the approval of a loan to use Social Security resources and with them buy shares in companies until he became a majority shareholder.
In 1977 alone, the Grancolombiana Corporation registered an increase in term deposits of $ 2,747.3 million, of which $ 732 million came from loans from the Social Security Institute. And also Agudelo Villa denounced that other public institutions also delivered large resources to that Corporation.
Faced with such complaints, Jaime Michelsen said that they were politically motivated and in defense of their actions, he denied having tampered with documents for any kind of operation. He also argued that the capital increase of his group had been achieved by capturing savings through the issuance of shares and he sued former Minister Agudelo Villa for slander, injury and for attacking the national economy.
On June 27, 1980, Judge Gilberto Cortés Nomeling acquitted Agudelo Villa of all guilt, because the charges against the directors of Grupo Grancolombiano were rigorously accurate and supported by documentary evidence. And in the face of the appeal filed by the banker, on December 16, 1980, the Superior Court of Bogotá confirmed the definitive dismissal in favor of the former minister, arguing that: “It is proven that the facts denounced by Dr. Agudelo Villa existed.”
It is clear that the Grancolombiano Group took advantage of its monopoly power in the financial sector to carry out simultaneous sales and purchases in a short time of shares of the aforementioned companies, to inflate their price or generate falls in their prices, manipulating prices and giving false signals to the market for their own benefit through fictitious operations.
These operations were denounced for dealing with the use of public resources through loans, mainly from Social Security, generating insecurity in the market and through this, then reselling those shares at higher prices, obviously manipulated.
Beethoven Herrera Valencia
Professor, National and External Universities
[email protected]
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