Colombia ousts CAR Cundinamarca head over wastewater contract

Colombia’s attorney general’s office removed the interim head of Cundinamarca’s regional corporation CAR Cundinamarca, Néstor Franco, over his role in a 2015 agreement to build a wastewater plant in the municipality of Chía, which in the eyes of prosecutors involved a series of irregularities.

The attorney general ruled that the 35bn-peso (US$11mn) agreement signed by CAR Cundinamarca, the municipal government of Chía and local water utility Emserchía was not fit to be executed, the regulator said in a press release on Tuesday.

The prosecutors said the agreement broke planning rules and was reached without completing designs or studies, which resulted in delays that ended up increasing the cost of the project to nearly 63bn pesos.

The attorney general also barred Franco from holding public office for 10 years, although the ruling can be appealed.

Construction of the wastewater plant, called PTAR Chía II, began last 2018 and is expected to be finished by this December, according to Chía government’s website.