Abuse of power or control? 43 officials of the Vamos party denounce months without pay due to a unilateral measure by comptroller Anel Flores. Details here.
The conflict between the bench independent Let’s go and the Comptroller General of the Republic, Anel Flores, It shows no signs of resolving. After the meeting that was to be held last Monday, April 27 at the headquarters of the Comptroller’s Office was canceled, without explanation, the wound continues to bleed.
The deputies Roberto Zúñiga and Luis Dukehead and deputy head of the bench, respectively, sat down to describe the state of a crisis that already has concrete faces: fathers and mothers who go to work every day without receiving a cent in return.
“Unfortunately, the Comptroller’s Office maintains the status in which our collaborators are arbitrarily on unpaid leave for investigation,” said Zúñiga, head of the bench.
The representative of the 8-4 circuit went further. “When power is used to intimidate, it stops being control and becomes abuse”.
A change of status that no one asked for
The disagreement between the two parties became public last week when eight deputies from Vamos (Alexandra Brenes, Janine Prado, Jhonathan Vega, Augusto Palacios, Yamireliz Chong, Eduardo Gaitán), together with Zúñiga and Duke, publicly denounced that the Comptroller’s Office changed the employment status of a group of officials who work in their offices within the National Assembly, placing them on unpaid leave without being requested.
However, Zúñiga and Duke explain that the staff of each deputy is temporary, and the rule does not allow temporary workers to request leave without pay.
Duke relates it like this: “For an official to have their status changed to unpaid leave, they have to request it before the appointing entity, in this case, the Assembly, and that has not happened.”
And he added that the same Assembly corroborated this in writing, arguing that neither the presidency nor the Human Resources Department processed any request. The president of the Legislature, Jorge Herreraas stated in an April 22 note addressed to Duke. He warned that there is no formal notification in the administrative files regarding the opening of processes or investigations against the aforementioned officials.
Zúñiga, for his part, brings up that same document as support:
“We received a certification from the President (Jorge Herrera) stating that none of these officials have requested leave without pay, and that the Assembly does not have these officials in that situation either.”
Four months without pay
The figures handled by the bench far exceed those accepted by the Comptroller’s Office. The entity says that only seven officials remain in suspension of payments, as part of verification and investigation processes initiated since the second half of March.
Vamos states that there are 43. Duke spoke about the cases: “In my case I have people who have not been paid for two months and I know of colleagues who have people who have not been paid since January. Four months people without pay, two months people without pay, and in the last fortnight a huge list of people, more than 35, who did not receive their salary,” he said.
The case has already reached the Supreme Court: Martita Cornejo, a lawyer from Representative Brenes’ office, presented a protection of constitutional guarantees by pointing out that the measure was applied “unilaterally” and that the comptroller lacks jurisdiction to modify the employment status of a public servant of the Legislature.
‘Extortion’ and ‘institutionality’
Duke called the issue “baseness” and classified it directly as extortion. “Using this as an extortion measure to want to obtain any type of exchange currency, with this type of pressure, is delicate, it alters the institutionality of our country.”
The Comptroller’s measure arose in the midst of the discussion of Bill 443, which reaffirms the mandatory use of ethanol in the country. However, debate on the project was suspended last Monday.
The majority of Vamos deputies expressed their rejection of the bill. Some of them have even said that it is a business in which the comptroller’s family, owner of one of the four sugar mills involved in producing the additive, would participate.
Zúñiga recalled that they have been harsh critics of Flores’ appearance in a Public Ministry proceeding related to a case of alleged unjustified enrichment that is being followed against former Vice President José Gabriel Carrizo.
The two deputies questioned whether the legislative criticism should have any consequences on their staff: “We are going to continue denouncing what we think is wrong, be it the issue of bioethanol, the emergence of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office in the middle of an investigation, the pressure on journalists and other elements,” said Zúñiga. And he posed the question that, according to him, defines the moment: “If you do it today in the face of that, what can you do tomorrow? Not endorse because you simply don’t like him or because that person said a comment?”
The response that the head of the bench has for this scenario is forceful: “That is not a democratic State. That is a police State, of abuse of power, that raises alarms to any element that wants to participate in public life. We have already gone through a military dictatorship, we all suffered it and it was difficult for us to fight for democracy, and I think it is something that we have to keep in mind.”
No meeting
The meeting between Vamos and Flores was scheduled for 11:00 am on Monday, April 27 at the headquarters of the Comptroller’s Office on Balboa Avenue. It was canceled without prior notice and without official explanation.
After the suspension of the meeting, Vamos issued a statement in which it demands the immediate correction of the employment status of the affected officials and announces that it will resort to all available legal and institutional avenues.
For now, those 43 officials continue to go to work. Without charging.
