Conservative President of Colombia Abelardo de la Espriella presented a dossier Tuesday containing 80 complaints and allegations of corruption against the preceding administration of Marxist former President Gustavo Petro.
Colombian outlets detailed that the dossier, known as the Libro de la Verdad, (“Book of Truth”), is a 135-page document containing 80 complaints of corruption allegedly committed by the Petro administration. President de la Espriella submitted the report to the Colombian Attorney General’s Office alongside Vice President José Manuel Restrepo, whose team carried out an audit of the Colombian state that started in recent weeks during the presidential transition period. Former President Gustavo Petro has not publicly commented on the matter at press time.
President de la Espriella, who took office this month, reportedly stated that irregularities involving the mismanagement of public funds were identified. Vice President Restrepo told reporters during the official event that the alleged instances of corruption were found during the audit process that his team carried out during the presidential transition period. The dossier was presented on August 18, the day Colombian authorities mark as the national day in the fight against corruption.
De la Espriella stressed that it is not up to him to determine the criminal liability of any specific individual, as that function belongs to the Colombian justice system and the Public Prosecutor’s Office, stating, “My obligation is to hand over this information, as I promised to do during the campaign.”
“Today we deliver to the Attorney General’s Office the Book of Truth, a technical and legal x-ray that documents the irregularities, the plundering, and the neglect with which we received the State. Here are the facts, the findings, and the evidence for justice to act,” President de la Espriella wrote on social media.
“There will be no cover-ups or impunity. Those who have looted the Nation’s resources must answer before the justice system with the full weight of the law,” he continued. “The truth is known. Justice must act.”
Vice President Restrepo reportedly explained that the corruption complaints include lack of transparency in the nation’s debt, failures in the implementation of national projects, instances of underfunding, contract hiring irregularities at the Ministry of Equality, and the politicization of the Colombian Foreign Ministry through more than 1,000 irregular contracts totaling over $25 million.
“Our method allowed us to move from individual cases to patterns of behavior. Today, the Book of Truth is not describing isolated incidents in 22 critical sectors — rather, we are observing nine critical behaviors that recur with the same characteristics across multiple entities,” Vice President Restrepo said. “We are getting to the root cause that explains inefficient or corrupt government behavior that undermines its social function.”
Restrepo affirmed that the Colombian government is addressing the root causes of corruption and inefficiencies of the Colombian state against its social function — stressing that the destruction of said rood causes is part of de la Espriella’s campaign promises.
According to the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo, the most significant irregularities documented in the dossier involve the National Union of Risk Response (UNGRD), Colombia’s national emergency response agency, an institution currently spearheading the response to last week’s magnitude 7.4 earthquake. Per El Tiempo, the dossier states that UNGRD only implemented 4.3 percent of all of the allocated funding the office received during the four years of Petro’s administration (2022-2026).
Colombia’s Attorney General Luz Adriana Camargo announced upon receiving a copy of the dossier that her office will launch a special working group to review the contents of the document and the allegations therein. Per Semana, Camargo emphasized that it is necessary to uphold due process and duly verify the contents of the complaints to confirm the facts and gather the required material evidence to move forward with any possible investigation.
“It will be up to the competent prosecutors to verify the submitted elements, cross-reference them with the evidence that must be legally gathered, and determine within the legal framework whether there are grounds to initiate proceedings and make decisions,” Camargo reportedly said.
De la Espriella’s then-incoming administration did not undergo a regular presidential handover process with the Petro administration in the weeks ahead of the August 7 inauguration. Marxist former President Petro repeatedly refused to acknowledge de la Espriella’s victory in the June 21 runoff election, accusing him and others — such as the state of Israel — of committing “algorithmic fraud” with “foreign funding.” De la Espriella, in response, suspended his team’s presidential handover engagements with Petro’s administration.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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