Officials reportedly selling masks to the Salvadoran government

On Saturday, June 20, President Nayib Bukele reported the destitution of Jorge “Koky” Aguilar, the president of the Environmental Fund of El Salvador (FONAES).

An article published by Cecibel Romero had previously revealed that his company INSEMA had been awarded a $250,000 dollars contract with the Ministry of Health to provide protection masks amid the coronavirus pandemic. The investigation also revealed that the masks were 121% more expensive than the market price. This made the hashtag #RenunciaKoky trend on Twitter before Bukele’s announcement. The president assured that he will ask the Court of Accounts and CICIES to investigate the case.

The Court of Accounts, incidentally, denounced yesterday the constant attacks from the President’s press secretary, Ernesto Sanabria.

 

Now El Faro reports that the Ministry of Health paid $344,000 for a batch of 800,000 surgical masks to GME Inversiones, a company founded by congressman René Gustavo Escalante Zelaya and run by him and his brother Manuel José Escalante, despite the fact that this company is not listed in the Government’s database of providers and that, before the COVID19 emergency, it had never sold medical supplies. The company’s main business, as stated in its registration, is “information technology”.

 

The price for each mask was $0.43. On March 17, three days before the contract was signed, the Consumer Defender’s Office had established a maximum market price of $0.26.

Manuel Escalante sent a photograph of a document sealed by a notary. The image records a sale of the 10 shares that Deputy Escalante had according to certificate of incorporation, and which represented 50% of the total shares of GME Inversiones. The document states that he sold eight shares to his brother Manuel José and two to his father, René Gustavo Escalante Durán. The document is dated “October 6, 2015”. More than four years ago, not “a year and a half”, as the deputy’s brother originally assured the Newspaper when they first spoke by telephone. Moreover, the date stated in the document is just five days after the company was founded and registered at the National Center of Registries.

At the time of signing the contract, on March 20, the government had already suspended classes and closed borders. No deaths from covid-19 had yet been reported in El Salvador and there were only three confirmed cases. Six days before, the Legislative Assembly had approved a “National State of Emergency”, which allowed the Executive and the municipalities to make direct contracts or acquisitions “related to the prevention, treatment, containment and attention of the pandemic”. This law, which had the vote of the deputy Escalante, enabled the Ministry of Health to directly contract the company that he founded with his brother.

According to Manuel Escalante, the masks were delivered on April 8. Two days before, on the 6th, the then Minister (Ana) Orellana celebrated the arrival of medical supplies with a retweet:

 

 

That was her last tweet. Since then, the account remains inactive.

Deputy Escalante also applauded President Bukele: “To President Nayib Bukele, I can say the following: ‘If the dogs bark, it is a sign that we are moving forward’. There will be detractors who are only interested in their personal finances and they will want to boycott you, but the people support you because health is their only asset”.

 

René Escalante recently (and unsurprisingly) resigned to ARENA. His father affiliated to Nuevas Ideas last year. His brother, Manuel Escalante is the Manager of Urban Development at the Mayor’s Office of San Salvador directed by Ernesto Muyshondt, also from ARENA.

 

Muyshondt, like deputy Escalante, has recently been closer to the Bukele Government than to his own party and has gone so far as to say that ARENA is not “an option, nor will they be an option if they continue to respond to the petty interests of those small groups of power” (X).

 

 

 

Read the full article here.