Urrutia, from glory to terrible management: COC points her out in the loss of the Pan American Games

The wound remains open after confirming that Colombia was not going to host the Pan American Games in 2027. The illusion faded when Panam Sports, organizer of the competition, notified that Lima (Peru) and Asunción (Paraguay) They were the only cities nominated to organize the fairs.

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So much Asunción as Lima They must make a 40-minute presentation, and then proceed to the voting of the member countries, and thus choose the city that will host the Pan American Games 2027.

The Extraordinary General Assembly of the Executive Committee of the entity will be held virtually on March 12 and brings together 41 members, to choose the next venue for the fairs.

Ciro Solano, president of Colombian Olympic Committee, was one of the first to come out to speak officially after the confirmation that Barranquilla was not going to be the venue and did not hesitate to blame a specific person: the former minister María Isabel Urrutia.

In his management as sports ministerbetween August 2022 and February 2023, the former athlete put several obstacles in the project of the Pan Americanindicated the manager. Panam detected that Urrutia did not want the joust.

Read here: Pan American Games: live analysis of Colombia's loss of the venue

“He ignored all the calls. Three letters and he answered them. He did isolated actions. She says at first that the president didn't want the games and neither did she. Then she appears in Barranquilla holding a meeting and appointing a manager when there was not even an organizing committee, which is the one who establishes the course or tasks to follow and creates responsibilities,” said the manager.

“The problems began when the outgoing government of Iván Duque did not pay the 2022 fee. The doubts about whether the fairs were going to be carried out or not increased with the change of administration due to the lack of decision,” said Ciro Solano.

“There was a lot of speculation that the Petro Government would not approve the games. We needed the president's statement whether he wanted them or not. Minister Guillermo Herrera made it known at the junction and the June 2022 fee was not paid.

María Isabel Urrutia and her scandals as a minister

The words of the president of the COC They remind us of the trills of the former minister, María Isabel Urrutia, who was declared insubsistent by Gustavo Petro, in which it was stated that the Games could not be held in Colombia.

“President @petrogustavo, the outgoing government assures that the next Pan American Games Barranquilla 2027 are still underway, however it considered that it should be the incoming administration who decides to confirm or cancel said games in Colombia,” Urrutia wrote in his X account on December 22. July 2022.

And he added: “The above, taking into account that the nation would have to contribute more than 5 million dollars and the games would not be held in our administration.
Taking into account that Barranquilla and the Atlántico must be the ones who financially contribute most of the investment.”

Urrutia He argued: “If this were not the case, a large part of the budget of the Ministry of Sports would be compromised in each of the future periods until 2027,” he stated.

His poor management in Ministry of Sports They led President Petro to declare her “insubsistent due to her indelicate actions with the nation's budget”, after the scandal of the contracts signed after her departure in February 2023.

The decision was made because Urrutia “He signed contracts” after the head of state asked him for his resignation letter, when the first shake-up occurred in the presidential cabinet.

And it is that Urrutia, Initially, she was accused of signing 64 contracts for more than
$23,920 million pesos before midnight on Thursday, March 3 and early morning on Friday, the 4th of the same month.

In September of last year, the Prosecutor's Office filed an accusation against the former minister. Maria Isabel Urrutia. It was established that apparently, between March 2 and 6 of this year, in the Ministry of Sports – when Urrutia was there – 104 contracts were concluded provision of professional services and management support that did not comply with legal requirements.

The prosecutor in the case said that Urrutia gave instructions with “unusual eagerness” for those contracts to be canceled and re-signed with people related to her, also extending their validity.

“The contracts did not respond to a justified need,” the prosecutor said at the time, adding that these supposedly irregular moves included the “intentional will of the former minister to direct those contracts.”

In her defense, María Isabel Urrutia argued a couple of months ago on the radio that “the resources were enabled on February 15, but I was already doing the studies. I was not doing anything irregular,” implying that she had to sign the agreements. so that the Ministry “could function.”

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