The close relationship of the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI) with the Government of one of the founding countries has once again raised questions about the financial organization. This time it is Costa Rica and an alleged case of “fraud and collusion” that the Bank attributes to an advertising businessman hired to provide services to the Administration of Rodrigo Chaves. He is accused of having drafted the conditions of the contract that was awarded to him for $400,000, donated in 2022, although the accused has shown evidence that he always acted under the orders of the authorities in the Presidency of the Republic.
Christian Bulgarelli is a name widely heard in Costa Rican politics. He has frequently appeared in the news and has already testified before a legislative commission for being the publicist who was in charge of a questioned communication strategy and products at the request of the Minister of Communication, Jorge Rodríguez Vives, according to the documents that the accused presented this Tuesday as discharge. The name of the businessman, however, has already crossed borders because CABEI decided to open an investigation after compromising audio recordings recorded by the then Minister of Communication, Patricia Navarro, were revealed, in which parts of Chaves' conversations or his party's conversations were heard. circle of trust
“The three legs of the bank are working as they should,” Rodríguez is heard saying in apparent reference to the financier, the supplier and the Presidency. “I would like to see the contract because I also have a lot of cravings,” says the president. “Custom made, sir,” Bulgarelli replied, according to the recordings that the then Minister Navarro made from the first days of her duties and that she delivered to the local newspaper. The nation, whose publications in December forced Chaves to ask CABEI to reveal the controversial contract as an alleged “act of transparency.”
CABEI, accused in the recent past of serving as financial food for Central American governments in corrupt or authoritarian practices, agreed to Chaves' request by carrying out an “extraordinary declassification” approved on December 15 by the Board of Directors (with representatives of the countries partners) and by the new executive president, Gisela Sánchez, elected 15 days earlier as a candidate proposed by the Costa Rican Government. Two months later, on February 16, the multilateral entity notified Bulgarelli that there is only one suspect of having violated anti-corruption rules and that is him. “It has been resolved that there are sufficient elements to determine that the supplier may have engaged in prohibited practices of fraud and collusion,” the Bank said in an unusual statement without detailing the actions of Bulgarelli that support that accusation.
“Only I appear, but never the public officials involved, including President Rodrigo Chaves, who created this contract with the same Bank,” Bulgarelli said on that occasion, who took two months to present his defense and now has a clearer argument. : He has not committed fraud because everything was done in coordination with Navarro, with Rodríguez and even with President Chaves, and there is no collusion because he did not agree on anything improper with anyone, he only followed orders. “A collusion is an agreement with someone, but only me is being investigated. CABEI is not investigating the President, nor the Ministers nor the Costa Rican representative to CABEI involved. So for the purposes of the accusation, I supposedly made a collusive pact with someone without a face, a 'ghost,'” Bulgarelli ironically stated in the response document to the Bank.
For this, Bulgarelli provided a notarial certification of the messages that were exchanged with Navarro. Sentences like this are read: “We urgently need the terms of the contract today. Jorge and I are waiting for you today. The President asked us for them before Wednesday,” Navarro wrote. Also this one, from June 11, 2022, a month after the start of the Government: “Jorge will be back in the country tomorrow. I would like to know if you already have the terms of reference of your contract and everything that the President indicated to us. The idea is to start soon.” In both, he refers to Jorge Rodríguez, Chaves' right-hand man and current Minister of Communication, although he still denies having had any hand in those efforts.
Communications are also read about the contents that Bulgarelli had to include among the terms of reference of the contract that was proposed to be awarded in November 2022 to his company RMC La Producadora. Everything seems to be coordinated with the senior officials in the Presidency, the beneficiary of the audiovisual and communication services that the provider would provide. “The Ministry of the Presidency of the Republic of Costa Rica, which serves as the executing agency, is responsible for approving the progress and products delivered within the framework of this contract,” says the contract that CABEI agreed to reveal. However, suspicions are already in place. “It seems that a culprit has already been chosen and the batteries will be directed against him,” the former president of the bank Dante Mossi told the press, who warned that the bank that in these projects does not receive terms of reference from a private party, but directly from the Government.
The case has been the subject of a political investigation in the Legislative Assembly and a criminal file for the alleged crime of “influence peddling.” Bulgarelli already gave a statement to the Prosecutor's Office, but as a witness. It has not been reported whether among the suspects is Minister Rodríguez or the president, investigated in 37 other judicial cases accumulated in two years of government. The president has tried to leave the issue behind after calling his former minister a “confessed criminal” for having recorded dialogues and delivering audios to the press. In an interview on CNN with journalist Fernando del Rincón, Chaves assured that “people understood that the Government of Costa Rica has not committed anything illegal” and “the people openly demonstrated in support of the Government”, without any known study. of opinion with those results.
Political tensions and social problems, reflected in the wave of violence, have been diluting the controversy over the audios and Bulgarelli's contract, but the case remains open at CABEI, which is trying to avoid the “reputational risk” warned by Dante Mossi. “She [Gisella Sánchez] He has said that he will defend the transparency and governance of CABEI; is starting badly; The Bank has to look inward,” added Mossi, whose management received strong questions for excessive spending, falling profits and financial support for projects managed without protection against corrupt or authoritarian practices, as published in October by a journalistic alliance around to the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) platform. “The bank of dictators,” her mother called it in the report.
Mossi's successor wanted to take the helm and upon taking charge assured that ethics will be a priority in her five-year term at the head of the organization founded in 1960 by Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, with headquarters in Tegucigalpa. . It also has three non-founding members: Belize, Panama and the Dominican Republic, in addition to the extra-regional partners Argentina, Colombia, South Korea, Cuba, Spain, Mexico and Taiwan. The total project portfolio at the end of 2023 was projected to close at more than 12 billion dollars and is presented as the main source of multilateral financing for the countries of the Isthmus.
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