In one of the transition reports from the outgoing government of President Gustavo Petro to the incoming government of Abelardo De La Espriella, it was documented that out of the 26.017 requests submitted by community action boards and ethnic communities to have their roads repaired under the ‘Caminos Comunitarios de la Paz Total‘ (Community Roads for Total Peace) program of the National Roads Institute (Invías), agreements were signed for 2.353 (9,04 percent). Another 288 were declared unviable (1,11 percent) and the remaining 23.376 were left pending (89,8 percent).
The document, known by EL TIEMPO, which covers management between August 7, 2022, and June 30, 2026, also indicates that 691.268 million pesos in unpaid commitments remained. This figure corresponds to the 2025 budget reserve, meaning money that the entity contracted but whose work was not received. This remains in reserve —a legal permission that allows it to be paid the following year—.
At the close of that year, Invías left 1,57 trillion pesos in reserve, of which 880.603 million pesos had been paid, as of May 2026.
The annexes of the transition report also show that the Comptroller General of the Republic (CGR) audited ‘Caminos Comunitarios de la Paz Total‘ and formulated 101 improvement actions. Of these, 94 remain active and 40 of them are already overdue.
The control entity classified four of the findings with alleged criminal implications for fiscal damage in concrete slab roads in Cundinamarca. Regarding the budgetary aspect, it categorized seven proposed corrections on the management of reserves and demandable liabilities as ‘fulfilled but ineffective‘.
EL TIEMPO’s Data Unit reviewed the files and annexes that show that Invías closes the four-year period with 31 percent progress towards the goal of the National Development Plan and works that are still unexecuted.
The program with 89,8 percent of requests unattended and a backlog of 90.626 million pesos with ethnic communities
‘Caminos Comunitarios de la Paz Total‘ was a program designed to intervene in tertiary roads through the signing of agreements with community action boards and ethnic communities —instead of large construction companies—, within the framework of Law 2166 of 2021. It sought to execute works such as concrete slab roads, culverts, and retaining walls.
According to the report, the program also aimed to “contribute to the development of the rural and popular economy through the generation of local employment, the activation and articulation of local economies, generating a sense of belonging for these community infrastructure works and strengthening the social fabric within communities.”
The scheme included community oversight bodies that would monitor the resources. The program’s total investment was 1,3 trillion pesos to meet the rural road goal of the Development Plan, the prior consultation agreements with black and indigenous communities, and the Comprehensive Rural Reform point of the Peace Agreement.
According to the report, the delay would be related to resources. “For the 2025 fiscal year, no resources were allocated to the program, which is why no agreements were signed during that period,” it mentions. In 2024, there were issues with the flow of resources from the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit. This was reflected “in the need to suspend the agreements until the budget was available,” the document states.
And in 2023, the initially certified budget of 367 billion pesos was reduced to 322 billion through a resolution from Minhacienda.
While the PND goal for intervention was 33.102 kilometers of regional roads and ancestral paths, the reported progress only reached 10.115 kilometers. Regarding this, the document proposes as a pending task to improve an additional 22.986 kilometers, more than double what was achieved in four years.
Of the five indicators under Invías‘ responsibility, two appear fulfilled in the report: non-concessioned primary roads rehabilitated and maintained, with 2.033 kilometers against a goal of 996; and access channels to maritime ports, with four against three.
The program made progress in PDET municipalities, prioritized by the Peace Agreement. There, 2.359 kilometers were intervened in 148 municipalities across 19 departments, when the goal was 2.437. In the tertiary road network as a whole, the executed works include 1.566 culverts, 358 box culverts, 328 retaining walls, and 466 kilometers of concrete slab roads.
Another point affected by resources was the prior consultation commitments. Invías had committed to allocating 22,5 percent of the program’s budget to black, Afro-Colombian, Raizal, and Palenquera communities, but the report acknowledges that the 2023 and 2024 fiscal years left “a backlog of 90.626 million pesos, derived from the impossibility of committing all assigned resources.”
It was also found that of the 26 contracts signed in 2024 with these communities for 85.446 million pesos, four —for 11.632 million pesos— “did not meet the requirements for perfection and execution within the fiscal year.” Three corresponded to the El Mango de La Púa 2 Community Council, which had received contracts in Cesar, Córdoba, La Guajira, and Bolívar. In the report’s table, these four appear without a start or end date.
Agreements with the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia, for 14.221 million pesos, showed physical progress of 40,3 percent in La Guajira and 39,19 percent in Casanare as of December 2025 —the latter was eventually suspended—. Meanwhile, an agreement signed in 2026 with the Association of Traditional Authorities of the Barí People, for 20.133 million pesos, has not started due to the lack of policy approval with three insurers —Seguros Mundial, Solidaria, and Seguros del Estado—.
In the annex of priority technical issues, Invías describes the program’s status. Of the nine issues that the Community Roads Management marked as critical, the seventh asks to “insist before the Ministry of Transport on the need to resolve the program’s underfunding, in order to guarantee compliance with commitments associated with prior consultation.” The others request processing expired fiscal years, securing cash to “guarantee timely payment to executing organizations,” and reactivating supervision over the 2023 and 2024 agreements to “unblock work fronts.”
Reserves questioned by the Comptroller’s Office
The four findings with alleged criminal implications correspond to agreements signed in 2023 with community action boards in Cundinamarca. The largest amount is for the rural area (vereda) El Portal, in Ricaurte.
In this case, the control entity found, during the field visit, that ditches were built on a secondary road, when the agreement contemplated concrete slab roads on tertiary roads. The fiscal damage amounted to 197.178.250 pesos, and the improvement action is overdue. In the other three, the pattern repeats, with deteriorated concrete slab roads and excessively purchased materials.
In the rural area (vereda) Aposentos de Venecia, the Comptroller’s Office also found that steel quantities that did not correspond to what was executed were reported, with the approval of the oversight body, “which constitutes an alleged falsification in a public document.”
Although the law allows for the establishment of budgetary reserves in cases of exceptional events or force majeure, the control entity identified that Invías used them routinely. In 2022, the entity left 321.860 million pesos in reserve without meeting requirements. The following year, it established another 46 reserves for 46.781 million pesos.
The Comptroller’s Office indicated that, of what remained in reserve at the close of 2022, 230.522 million pesos expired —were legally extinguished— because they were also not executed during 2023. The entity states that this generated a “budgetary imbalance in the related contracts.”
It was also found that in 2023, Invías processed 74 payments for 17.198 million pesos to cover debts from previous years, “which were not processed in the fiscal year in which they originated.”
The 2024 financial audit records that Invías established 7.293 budgetary reserves in that fiscal year for 2,41 trillion pesos. From a sample of 22 reserves established due to force majeure, the Comptroller’s Office found that 13 —for 151.713 million pesos— “do not meet the exceptional requirements for their establishment.”
Invías had already commented on these types of figures. In a statement on March 13, 2026, regarding information published in the media about execution levels, it mentioned that “the indicated percentages correspond to the recording of financial obligations and do not reflect the real progress of contractual management or the status of work execution.” It specified that during 2025, it reached a commitment level “of 99,45 percent of investment resources.”
The entity attributed the gap between commitments and obligations to restrictions in the approval of the Annualized Cash Program (PAC) by the Ministry of Finance. It added that the percentages “do not represent a lack of project execution, but rather differences between the times of contracting, work execution, invoicing, and authorized cash availability for payments.”
Works ordered by a judge
In the annex of priority issues, 139 critical matters were consolidated: 54 from the Sub-directorate of Integral Road Management, 47 from Regional Roads, 29 from Road Modernization, and nine from Community Roads. Among them are 29 mentions of popular actions and two judicial rulings.
In Bolívar, the Administrative Court ordered attention to two roads requiring 60 billion and 22 billion pesos. Nine more roads must be intervened by orders from courts specialized in land restitution. Most are in Santa Marta, and the largest amount is 11.400 million pesos.
The report also lists the San Francisco–Mocoa Bypass, worth 2,6 trillion pesos, as “suspended,” and only indicates that “the bidding processes had to be interrupted.” Regarding this bypass, there is an audit by the Comptroller’s Office which concluded that “patrimonial damage to the State of 8.614.674.574 pesos is generated, as resources have been disbursed (…) without the supporting documents demonstrating their actual execution.”
Regarding tolls, losses due to barrier removal between 2025 and 2026 reached 177.311 million pesos. Added to this is the La Parada station, in Norte de Santander, which was the target of a terrorist attack in February 2025 and subsequently demolished by order of the municipality of Villa del Rosario. Invías is taking action to annul that act and “seek recourse against the local authorities of the municipality of Villa del Rosario who issued it.”
The cold front that hit the Caribbean in February 2026 caused damages totaling 626.220 million pesos in 50 municipalities across eight departments. However, five months later, contracting had still not started.
In the Guillermo Gaviria Echeverri Tunnel, electromechanical equipment has been stored since November 2024, awaiting the completion of civil works projected for 2027 by the Government of Antioquia. And the viaduct at kilometer 58, on the Bogotá–Villavicencio road, inaugurated in early 2025, remains under Invías‘ custody because “it has not been formally received by ANI or by Concesionaria Vial Andina.”
Adding to this, eight officials have passed through the General Directorate of Invías between August 2022 and June 2026. Furthermore, of the entity’s 997 administrative career positions, 279 remain unfilled. Regarding disciplinary complaints against its officials, the number increased from 49 in 2022 to 224 in 2025.
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