Chilean parliamentarians study the filing of a constitutional charge against Sebastián Piñera for “Pandora Papers”

A group of Chilean parliamentarians are studying the possibility of bringing a constitutional charge against President Sebastián Piñera, after discovering that the president had participated in a sales agreement for a mining company in a tax haven.

According to an international mega-investigation called “Pandora Papers” conducted by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) in collaboration with the Center for Journalistic Investigation (Ciper) and LaBot, the Piñera and Délano families signed a purchase contract for the mining company Dominga in 2010 in the British Virgin Islands, located in the Caribbean.

Dominga mining is a resisted Chilean mining project located in the Coquimbo region, north of Santiago. This project belongs to the company Andes Iron controlled by the Delano family and wants to build two mines for the extraction of iron and copper concentrates, and a mega-port to export its production.

This is intended to be close to the Humboldt Penguin National Reserve, in the municipality of La Higuera, in the Coquimbo region.

The agreement signed by the two families is said to have taken place in 2010 when the president and his family were the main shareholders in the mining project. occupying 33% of its shares. In December of the same year, the Chilean businessman Carlos Alberto “Choclo” Délano decides to buy for 152 million dollars the percentage of all the partners of Dominga, including the part that President Piñera dealt with.

The purchase contract consisted of three installments and the deal was sealed with a signed document for $ 14 million, and another in the British Virgin Islands for $ 138 million. The first installment was due on December 10, 2010 and had a value of $ 106.8 million, the second was $ 21 million while the last was $ 9.9 million and it would only be canceled if “the rules of the area where the mining project would be located were not changed”.

That is to say, the payment of this last installment depended on the fact that “the sector does not become an exclusion zone or has become a national park or a national reserve, which would inevitably hamper the development of the Dominga project in this areaa, as well as the construction of a port 50 kilometers away ”.

This scenario fell on the first government of President Sebastián Piñera, which occurred from March 2010 to March 2014. In his first government, Piñera announced the change of location of the Barrancones thermoelectric power station, which would be located in this same area. “I agreed with Suez to change the location of the Barrancones thermoelectric power station, so as to move it away from the Punta Choros area., Isla Damas and Isla Gaviota and protect this nature sanctuary, ”President Piñera said at the time.

However, Barrancones had planned to operate in the same area Dominga wants to set up today, the Delano family project.

In 2017, it was learned that the Piñera family was behind the Dominga mining company and a parliamentary inquiry was opened. where it was alleged that Piñera “sought to benefit the mining company Dominga in August 2010, by arbitrarily bypassing and bypassing environmental institutionality canceled the construction of the thermoelectric power station of Barrancones in the municipality of La Higuera “. Regardless of the above, Piñera was dismissed from his post by the Chilean courts.

Last August, the Dominga project was approved by 11 votes for and one against, which aroused the ire of national and international environmentalists who called it “scandalous” the authorities’ hasty decision to give the green light to this initiative valued at $ 2.5 billion.

Constitutional indictment

The information revealed by the “Pandora Papers” triggered a group of parliamentarians to announce a possible constitutional charge against President Piñera for this new scandal. The constitutional indictment is a tool that solicits the responsibilities of public officials charged with committing constitutional offenses, which in the worst case ends with dismissals or dismissals.

For the Vice-President of the Judiciary of the Christian Democracy (DC) political party, Gabriel Silber, “It is very serious that President Piñera has submitted the approval of an environmental permit to an economic operation in which he participates or has a direct interest, this calls into question the independence of the authority of the President of the Republic ”.

The deputy Marcelo Díaz said that this information “This is extremely serious, because it confirms that President Sebastián Piñera is using the institutional framework of the state for his benefit., in this case, to increase its already important heritage, its enormous fortune ”.

However, the constitutional charge is still under investigation as the events mentioned in the journalistic investigation occurred during Piñera’s first government. It even triggered the possibility for some parliamentarians to study the details of the authorities’ approval of Dominga last August, to check if there was any influence on this decision. MEPs are expected to take a position on this this Monday or Tuesday.

Defense of the Chilean Presidency

In a press release, La Moneda defended President Piñera by demonstrating “That the facts raised regarding the sale of Minera Dominga have already been investigated in depth by the prosecution and courts in 2017 and the prosecutor’s office recommended closing the case due to the non-existence of a crime, in accordance with the law and the lack of participation of President Sebastián Piñera in the above-mentioned operation ”.

“The President never participated in or obtained any information regarding the Minera Dominga sale process, an operation which took place in 2010, when the president no longer had any participation in the administration of these companies, ”the government declared.

During a personal defense at the Palacio de La Moneda this Monday, the president assured that “the decision to sell Dominga mining has not been consulted or informed”, and that “it is not true that there is new information, information is known in the process; I can send you the press clippings ”.

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