Joseba Grajales, the Spanish businessman who challenges Petro

One crystal clear morning in April 2022, Gustavo Petro was flying through the sky in a Super King Air 300 with leather seats and wood finishes. Aboard that twin-engine plane he went to campaign in the most remote places in the country. That day he was obediently wearing his seatbelt, even though the crew would dare to demand it from him like the rest of the passengers. He remembered with regret that weeks ago they had crossed an area of ​​turbulence and in a shake of the ship he had hit his head on the roof, which had caused a wound that he now hid under a cap. The belt kept him fixed and safe in the seat. With his gaze lost through the window, he began a long dissertation on the history of power in Colombia from its very origins. In short, a white Creole elite had screwed itself into positions of influence from the beginning and passed the baton through the centuries, until today's sun. He refers to that caste as “the Spanish.”

Petro has a very deep knowledge of the establishment Colombian, has rubbed shoulders with him in the last 30 years, although he likes to cultivate that image of outsider. He has friends who are bankers, millionaires, businessmen, and influential journalists. Otherwise he could hardly have come to power. That does not mean that his animosity toward the bourgeoisie is imposed. Part of his speech is based on questioning the privileges of that elite, which in reality are many and compete for power in Colombia, it is not a single and monolithic one. Within these discursive enemies are “the Spaniards.” Petro surrounded himself with many of them during the campaign, has integrated them into his team or that of the first lady and has even granted them Colombian nationality by decree. One of his sons-in-law, whom he has had living at home, is from Valencia. This shows that there is no concrete animosity, but rather a theoretical one. However, when a Spaniard comes across issues that really matter to you, the issue can become personal. This is what just happened to millionaire Joseba Mikel Grajales, a Basque whose fortune is valued at 230 million dollars. He is the owner of EPS Sanitas, the health promoter that the Petro Government has just intervened arguing that his accounts do not balance. The president has undertaken this offensive against the health promoters whom he wants to put an end to after his health reform, one of his great goals since he came to power, was rejected in Congress. This is how his greatest political defeat has been handed down to him, but far from being intimidated he has begun to dismantle the current system as it is conceived to create something new that has everyone in suspense. Many see this adventure as a leap into the void and a way to dynamite something that works; He and Laura Sarabia, his right-hand man, however, believe that it is a resounding way to approach a public health model that puts an end to the commissions that companies take.

That is, it ends up in the pockets of people like Grajales, who also owns the prepaid medicine companies Colsanitas and Medisanitas. Sanitas alone has six million users and the second largest EPS in the country. According to the 2022 report of the Superintendency of Companies, the company Keralty SAS, a subsidiary registered in Colombia of the foreign group, reported income of more than 58 million dollars and a net profit of almost 44. Keralty and another company made contributions to the campaigns of the senators who have managed to sink the reform in Congress. Petro has accused them of selling out to foreign capital that has no interest in reversing the status quo, Spaniards who oppose the change it advocates. “In the seventh commission of the senate (the one that studied and sank the project) Keralty defeated us for now,” the president wrote in his X account once the shipwreck of his initiative became known. “It's not just anything. “We were defeated by a few parliamentarians financed by foreigners.” Two days later, the president insisted on the accusation with a more aggressive touch: “It is humiliating for the Colombian nation that millions of lives of poor people and urban territories and neighborhoods excluded and without health, are sacrificed by three or four financed congressmen.” for foreign money and by foreigners who have stolen tens of billions of pesos from the health of the entire Colombian population.”

Petro launched that mortar at some senators whom he accused of treason, almost. It was a declaration of war on Congress, which at first it controlled through a series of pacts and negotiations that have now evaporated. The president of Congress, Iván Name, responded that his statements were “injurious and slanderous” and violated the dignity of the parliamentarians, who were the same ones who had approved the pension reform months before. The senator gave a final warning: “Continuing to raise the tone against our congressmen and the institution of the Congress of the Republic only contributes to the deterioration of the harmonious relations between the branches of public power.” Name made a final warning: “Continuing to raise the tone against our congressmen and the institution of the Congress of the Republic only contributes to the deterioration of the harmonious relations between the branches of public power.”

The shadow of Grajales looms over a Petro who is living his most turbulent days. He has decided to act and, at the same time that he has announced the convocation of a Constituent Assembly that does not look like it will prosper, he has begun to carry out this health reform de facto, by way of facts. Grajales was born in Álava and built a small empire in the energy sector with the companies Guascor and Gamesa, and since 2016 he jumped into the health business. In 2021 he was part of the Forbes list of the 100 richest people in Spain, although he is not especially known in his country. Today, he is the president and largest shareholder of the Keralty group, a multinational dedicated to providing health services with a presence in more than ten countries, including the United States, Mexico, Brazil, Spain, Peru, Venezuela, the Philippines and the Dominican Republic. In total, Keralty has nearly 7 million customers and more than 24,000 employees. Keralty financed the 2022 congressional campaign of the Liberal, Conservative, La U, Independent Social Alliance, Democratic Center and Just and Free Colombia parties.

Petro later referred to the owners of Keralty without citing them: “They looted the Colombian state for decades through its health system and its resources from royalties and public investment. Instead of guaranteeing the rights of the people, some people, using public power, allowed the enrichment of a few hypericians and to do so they filled the country with blood and death.” Wilson Arias, one of the senators closest to Petro, and who vehemently defended health reform, pointed out Grajales as the great enemy: “This man is the one we are facing: the Spaniard Joseba Grajales. Owner of Keralty and EPS SANITAS. He donated hundreds of millions of pesos to Colombian parties that sank the Reform. He is worth €250 million and has elite connections. He is a merchant of life.”

Other congressmen from the Government line have also criticized Grajales. Chamber representative Alfredo Mondragón, speaker of the health reform, wrote in his X account: “Who's in charge in Colombia? All it took was a letter from the magnate Joseba Grajales, owner of the multinational Keralty, for the attorney general's office to immediately open an investigation to the Superintendent of Health and then go to carry out a physical search at the Superintendence of Health.” Mondragón shared a letter in which Keralty asks Attorney Margarita Cabello to initiate disciplinary investigations against the Superintendency. After the letter, the Attorney General's Office sent a team of four officials to the Health Superintendency. The delegate told the media that they had not found the necessary documentation to carry out the intervention.

In addition to the EPS and the two prepaid medicine companies, Keralty is the owner of the Sanitas University Foundation, an educational center that offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in careers related to the health sector such as nursing and psychology. Grajales also owns the Reina Sofía Clinic, one of the most prestigious in the north of Bogotá; from the Chía Clinic; from the Iberoamericana clinic in Barranquilla, from the Santa María del Lago Children's Clinic and from the Sebastián de Belalcázar clinic in Cali. Grajales' power in the healthcare world is immense and he now directly clashes with Petro's interests. The president has gone to run into “the Spaniards” again.

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