Surprised. This is how Saúl Kattan declared himself when the Investigative Unit of EL TIEMPO located him abroad to ask him about the criminal complaint filed against him by the representative of Internexa, an entity of which he was manager (e) and member of the board during the Petro government.
In fact, he flatly ruled out that the accusations made against him—celebration of contracts without legal requirements—are related to the multimillion-dollar Bio-Cloud project. that was going to be sealed with the Minciencias and leveraged with money from royalties.
READ ALSO
The letter to Isa
Gustavo Petro knows Saúl Kattan from his mayoralty in Bogotá. Photo:THE TIME
“When I left Internexa the contract had not been awarded. Then, it was handed over to the entity and it was ISA that did not want to execute it. Rather, they should explain to the country why if they were going to give Internexa practically 630,000 million pesos—twice what the entity is worth—to execute such an important project for the country, they reversed it.Kattan noted.
He was also surprised that the complaint was based on the audit, Yes, by the time they filed it, on August 4, the internal check had not been completed.
In fact, He said he had inside information that they were pressuring people to provide distorted data.
Even in a letter sent in September to the ISA board, he noted: “The information I have received indicates that an attempt was being made, retrospectively, to construct an interpretation according to which some of these projects were carried out without the corresponding authorizations or contrary to the company’s statutes. Even more worrying, I have learned of versions according to which officials and technicians were being pressured to modify, reinterpret or deviate from previously issued concepts.”
The letter that Saúl Kattan sent to the Isa board in September. Photo:THE TIME
In fact, he warned in the letter about the risk of partial versions or premature conclusions emerging before there was a complete evaluation: “The reputational damage that this could cause would not only be for me or other former officials; it could also seriously affect Internexa and ISA.”
READ ALSO
The meeting and Grau
The Catalan Manel Grau Pujadas. Photo:Private file
After denying that there was a conflict of interest due to the roles he played in the Petro government, Kattan admitted that Manel Grau was present at one of the meetings held by Minciencias about Bio-Nube. But, after noticing that there were more people, including Jorge Carrillo, he assured that he asked why the Catalan was there and they told him that he was from the Cisa board: “I never met him at Palacio or Internexa.”
And incidentally he denied having accessed privileged information to participate in that call: “I had been in several meetings at Ecopetrol where the issue was discussed and we knew about it.”
Regarding the disbursements that were stopped due to the purchase of equipment for the Big Data project, he warned that they were reversed after he left Internexa: “They are manipulating everything.”
Finally, he attributed the accusations against him to personal and economic interests in ISA: “They want to put an end to Internexa and they are creating a scandal where there is none.”
And he recalled that during his administration, the entity—which has a presence in Peru— recorded the best results in its history.
INVESTIGATIVE UNIT
u.investigativa@eltiempo.com
@UinvestigativaET
Follow us now on Facebook
