“The money is not bottled”: Poblado Centers explains that an advance of 70 billion MinTic has already been invested to fulfill the contract

Unión Temporal Centros Poblados finally ruled on the 70 billion pesos it was paid in advance from the Ministry of ICT for the contract worth more than trillion pesos won in December. UT said the money “is not bottled or wasted” since it was ultimately used to purchase equipment to fulfill the contract.

The Poblado Centers have specified in what equipment the money is invested, such as telecommunications supplies (indoor and outdoor Wi-Fi access points, routers, among others); electrical equipment (rectifiers, inverters, battery circuit breakers); solar panels, chargers, battery; physical materials such as wiring, terminals and infrastructure equipment such as poles and metal structures.

And they specify that these elements were acquired from two companies, one national and one foreign: respectively Inselsa SAS and Nuovo Security LLC. “Despite the fact that MINTIC made the disbursement of resources in February 2021, they were only used until the end of 2021”, they explained.

Nuovo Security LLC received $ 58,301,922,067 while Inselsa received $ 11,942,357,532, representing $ 70,243,279,599.

Then they explained that the winery has equipment that exceeds 20 billion pesos and, on the other hand, others would have been installed for more than 26 billion pesos and they said that there is still 20 billion of pesos being nationalized. “These companies made the agreed deliveries, which were stored in warehouses in Bogotá, Aguachica, Barranquilla, Tunja, Quibdó, San Marcos and Cartagena ”.

They assure that with these deliveries, 1002 digital centers were set up in Magdalena, Bolívar, Chocó and Boyacá, but they specified that these points installed were with different resources from the advance and represent more than 4 billion pesos . They also indicated that over $ 7 billion, unrelated to the advance, was invested in 4,365 field studies for a total of $ 11,964,855,000.

“Therefore, the Temporary Union reiterates emphatically that it is not true that the advance is inflated or lost and that on the contrary, as stated in this press release, it is intended to bring connectivity to schools and marginalized communities; It would be a very serious error to decree an inadmissible deadline because it would involve the State in very expensive legal actions and prejudicial to the public finances.», Declared UT Centros Poblados, through its legal representative, Luis Fernando Duque.

And they have declared that they are ready to cede the contract to connect the 7,277 digital points, however, this Friday Minister Karen Abudinen declared its expiration, despite the demands of the Temporary Union.

The announcement was made during a hearing held by the Portfolio itself, and during which it was determined that the company chosen for the process did not respect the terms of the contract, to the detriment of the good faith provided by the parties up to that moment, thus the declaration of expiry of the contract is configured as a final decision and without appeal.

To argue the decision, the delegate of the Ministry of ICT, Adriana Vivas Robles, recalled the accusations against the Unión Temporal Centros Poblados de Colombia, that he had presented false documents that reflected the bank guarantees issued by Banco Itaú and that they enabled them to obtain both the contract and the 70 billion pesos advance.

The falsity of the guarantees was confirmed by spokespersons for the financial institution, who had already declared in recent days that “neither the Centros Poblados nor their members had been the subject of a credit study for this purpose. (the issuance of bank guarantees) and, consequently, there is no credit quota approval with the requirement of real or personal guarantees for this operation ”.

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