April 23, 2026 – 09:06
The MEC confirmed through an audit that the Universidad Sudamericana, where Hernán Rivas “studied,” was not duly authorized by Cones to grant degrees at the time of the issuance in favor of the Colorado Chartist senator “with permission.” In addition, already in 2020, the review of all documents issued by said university was recommended.
This Thursday, a general audit of the Executive Branch came to light, signed on December 30, 2020, during the mandate of Mario Abdo Benítez. In said file, a special review was carried out corresponding to the registration process and registration of degree titles of the South American Universitywhich in June 2020 issued a law degree for the deputy Hernán David Rivas Román.
The report highlights that on July 1, 2020, the interim rector of the university sent a note to Cones. In that document, the university indicated that journalistic publications indicated that they could not issue degrees to students who completed their studies in previous years because the campus was closed, which is why requested that their law degrees be registered.
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In response, the Cones returned that file on July 23, 2020. The Presidency’s opinion indicates that with this action “it is reflected that the Universidad Sudamericana is in non-compliance with applicable regulations for insertion in the cadastral registry of Law Careers-Luque Headquarters.”
The audit team also emphasizes that, for this reason – “at the time of verifying the documents submitted by the Universidad Sudamericana – it did not meet the requirement of being duly authorized and registered in the National Council of Higher Education (Cones), therefore, was not authorized to issue bachelor’s degrees”.
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Deficiencies in the MEC
For all this, this audit of the Executive Branch concludes: “Based on the analysis carried out on the file presented by the Universidad Sudamericana, on June 8, 2020, for the registration of a bachelor’s degree, we can conclude that, The internal control system of the areas involved is not reliable or satisfactory.nor do they adapt in all cases to the provisions that regulate them, because we have detected deficiencies exposed in this report”.
Furthermore, it is recommended review of all degrees issued by the Universidad Sudamericana and registered by the MEC, with the objective of rectifying or ratifying all those finalized prior to the Cones resolution by which the race is approved.
At that time, the Minister of Education was Eduardo Petta.
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MEC whitewashed Rivas months before
This mentioned report already dates back to 2020; It was specifically issued on December 30. Strikingly, on September 9, Almost four months earlier, the MEC blanked Rivas’s title expedition in record time.
The audit team in that case was headed by the General Directorate of Internal Audit of the MEC, in charge of Casimiro Marinwhich concluded that “the requirements established in the current regulations were met for the registration and subsequent validation of the degree title of Mr. Hernán David Rivas Román”.
The audit hardly mentions anything regarding the certification in record time – 24 hours – so that the deputy can be sworn in as a member of the JEM. It only limits itself to detailing that on May 9, the Rivas file was entered and that there were no other pending files, implying that that is why the title was processed in less than a day.
Read more: MEC whitewashes deputy Rivas’s title expedition in record time
The conclusions of that first audit indicated that the race was enabled in 2009, before the creation of this last registry, in 2013, so there is no irregularity. Nothing was said about the lack of authorization of Cones, which was later confirmed in December by a second audit.
Rivas was appointed by the Chamber of Deputies in the JEM to replace the deputy Ramon Romero Roa (ANR) on June 3, 2020, without having a law degree. He was sworn in on June 9, after obtaining his degree in record time.
Yesterday he was granted unpaid leave by Chartism and its allies, despite the opposition calling for his resignation or loss of office.
