Delay in Work (Cost)
Introduction
The Contracting Carousel scandal is a case of political corruption developed in the city of Bogotá (Colombia), carried out during the administration of former mayor Samuel Moreno Rojas, belonging to the Alternative Democratic Pole in 2010. In mid-2009, the then councilor Carlos Fernando Galán, denounced in a debate in the Bogotá council serious irregularities in the contracting of the main works of the city. By that date it was clearly visible that the works were not moving and by the end of that year, in 2009, Grupo Nule, the main contractor for the works in Bogotá, made public the news that this conglomerate was in serious financial difficulties. At the end of that same year, 2009, the controversy broke out on June 25 of that year when a list of complaints came to light, provided by the then senator Gustavo Petro, which evidenced the negotiation of multimillion-dollar commissions by Germán Olano, former congressman of the Republic, to the businessman Miguel Nule Velilla"), whose company, which bore his last name, handled a large part of the contracts for different public works that were carried out in the Colombian capital.[1] The main work that was directly affected by these irregular negotiations was the construction of the third phase of the TransMilenio public transportation system, which was more than three years late.[2].
In the immediately following time, different jurisdictional institutions began investigations that increased to such a point that several politicians, businessmen, leaders of the Urban Development Institute[2] and even the Mayor of the city himself were involved. The State came to present a capital loss close to 2.2 trillion Colombian pesos (approximately 1.1 billion dollars, at the 2011 rate).[3][4].
The scandal is considered one of the largest in the recent history of Colombia.[5].
Background
Seventy percent of the construction of the third phase of the Transmilenio system was awarded to Grupo Nule"), a conglomerate of companies headed by Guido Nule Marino and his cousins Manuel and Miguel Nule Velilla. However, at the end of 2009 said group presented serious financial problems, some of them caused by administrative mismanagement. As a result, the first evidence of these difficulties was reflected in the delay of the works that were in charge of the aforementioned group.[6].