The Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic (CGR) opened administrative proceedings against five officials for using 182 billion colones to pay debt without the authorization of the Legislative Assembly.
This was confirmed by the entity to legislator Silvia Hernández from the National Liberation Party (PLN), who complained in the Plenary that, after a preliminary and confidential investigation, it was transferred to the Legal Division of the regulatory body.
The legislator did not want to indicate the names of the officials so as not to obstruct the current process, however, she did not rule out that they are senior officials of the Solís Rivera administration and the current one.
The payments without authorization were due to the fact that debt maturities were not included in the ordinary budget. It was from June 2018 when in the Ministry of Finance began to use resources despite needing the endorsement of the Legislative Assembly.
At that time, Rocío Aguilar Minister of Finance, assured that the payments amounted to 48 billion, however, in the end they had to use 182 billion colones.
Hernández recalled that during a hearing in the Committee on Finance Affairs in the Legislative Assembly, Aguilar acknowledged that for 45 days they had knowledge of the lack of money, which led to the request of the first extraordinary budget for 600 billion colones.
It is worth remembering that an extraordinary budget was added for 300 billion colones, for a total shortfall of 900 billion colones, money known as “fiscal gap”.