'When I arrived at the Ministry of Sports there were very generous salaries': Isabel Urrutia

Maria Isabel Urrutia She became the first woman to be head of the Ministry of Sportsafter the appointment of the president Gustavo Petro in 2022, but his time in the portfolio was fleeting and ended amid serious accusations.

The Attorney General's Office issued a statement of charges against the former Olympic athlete “for her alleged participation in the contractual activity of an inter-administrative agreement,” with some irregularities in the contracting process.

This occurred after the Prosecutor's Office will carry out an investigation because, apparently, between March 2 and 6 of this year, in the Ministry of Sports -when Urrutia was there- 104 contracts were signed for the provision of professional services and management support that did not comply with legal requirements.

The Olympic medalist in Sydney 2000 attended to the journalist César Augusto Londono

and spoke about these accusations on the podcast Nobody is perfect' he Ace Diary and spoke about these investigations and accusations that were made against him.

“I have assumed it with all the tranquility and responsibility, I know that things were done well and we did not steal a single peso, we did what had to be done, but we lacked time, the idea was to reach every corner of Colombia, but It was not achieved… A public official who is not involved in the Attorney General's Office will not be an official,” said Urrutia.

On the other hand, he spoke of some irregularities that he found when arriving at the Ministry of Sports, with people who had 'quite generous' salaries and that in some cases exceeded the salary of the minister himself.

“When I arrived, the Ministry's salaries were generous. There were people who earned more than the minister. The Minister of Sports, since the structuring of the Ministry of Sports has not been done, continues to be an administrative department, and the director of the administrative department earns 17 million pesos, unlike the other ministries that are above 25 million. 30 million pesos,” said the former official.

And he added: “Some service providers (earned better). There were people who earned 25 million pesos. And, for example, high school students who had 7-8 million pesos“said the former minister who was head of the portfolio in Gustavo Petro's government.

“What we did was, we asked the administrative department if we could make a table of what the salaries were like, because no one can earn more than the minister. “So we ended up making a table where we started at 9 million pesos, according to educational capacity, experience and all that, and there it went down until it was 3,200,000,” he concluded. Maria Isabel Urrutia who was Minister of Sports from August 7
– when Gustavo Petro took office as president – until February 27, 2023.

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