The authorities already know where the acting director of Civil Aeronautics (Aerocivil), Luis Alfonso Martínez Chimenty, and his trusted team will be on the upcoming Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays: approving and signing contracts before the government change.
Despite the complaints about irregularities in million-dollar contracting processes being cooked up by that entity, which have triggered resignations of its officials and inspections by the Comptroller’s Office, Martínez Chimenty issued a resolution enabling those days to advance contracts.
Until August 1
EL TIEMPO investigated and established exclusively that nine days before a special team from the Comptroller’s Office arrived, Martínez Chimenty signed resolution 02006 giving the instruction.
“Considering that contracting processes are carried out through the SECOP II platform, which operates in real time, for special service reasons, it is necessary to temporarily establish the validity of internal budgetary and contractual procedures in the departments, regions, groups, and offices responsible for the preparation and consolidation of pre-contractual documents, management, promotion, substantiation, processing, approval, signing, and perfection of the procedures and processes of state contracting of Aerocivil,” the document reads.
It adds that, by virtue of the above, “it is ordered to declare as business days for contractual, budgetary, and other administrative procedures the Saturdays June 27, 2026, July 4, 11, 18, 25, and August 1, 2026, for the purposes of legality and legal validity of all procedures related to public contracting carried out by Aerocivil “.
Days later, the same decision was made at Dapre.
And although sources from Aerocivil claimed they were unaware of the resolution and that it had not yet been uploaded to their official page, EL TIEMPO found it published in the Official Gazette.
Alerts and complaints
For two months, EL TIEMPO reported that that entity had been approving more than 1,700 contracts and that a high-ranking official resigned due to irregularities in a process to acquire policies and insurance.
In fact, at that time the Ministry of Transport itself requested a special audit. And Rodrigo Lara Restrepo, the Minister of the Interior appointed by Abelardo de la Espriella’s government, warned that a radar and radio-aid contract was being tied up.
That same week, the first of July, Narda Duperly Roa Ibarra, advisor to the general management of Aerocivil, resigned claiming she was being forced to sign studies of a million-dollar contract. Although she did not give details, EL TIEMPO established that it concerns the Document Management System (SGDA) contract that the state company 4/72 had been executing.
From $400 million to $12,000 million
This newspaper investigated and established that there are emails and records in which the official asks why, if the same contract had been signed last January for 400 million pesos, it was now going to jump to more than 12 billion pesos.
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“The argument is that a license was also going to be purchased to change the SGDA platform to a new one called Control-DOC. But in the prior studies, licensing is mentioned, not purchase. Licensing does not exceed 400 million pesos in the market,” said an informed source.
Now, the resolution claims that it is necessary to enable non-business days to meet goals and schedules.
What do the Prosecutor’s Office and the Attorney General’s Office say?
INVESTIGATIVE UNIT
u.investigativa@eltiempo.com
@UinvestigativaET
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