The auditor of Financial Compliance, Gerardo Lozano, resigned from the Superior Audit of the Federation (ASF), a week after denouncing the brake of 60 opinions that should have been criminally denounced for the existence of alleged crimes committed by public officials, confirmed source of the institution.
The resignation takes effect for this Tuesday, November 16, due to the differences between Lozano and the auditor Colmenares before the changes in the regulations of the institution that limits the performance of areas such as the Special Audit of Financial Compliance that Lozano headed since 2018.
Last Monday, Animal Político published that Lozano sent to the Surveillance Commission of the Chamber of Deputies on November 3 in which he warned that the ASF, in charge of David Colmenares, had made changes to its regulations to limit the responsibility for filing criminal complaints to a single area.
Read: Auditor Colmenares changed ASF regulations which has stopped 60 criminal complaints
The new regulation repealed section XXXIV of article 12 that allowed all the General Directorates of the audit areas to present the criminal complaints that proceed for the irregularities detected and to contribute to the criminal proceedings, but since last August, only the Special Follow-up Audit will be able to denounce.
This area is headed by Nemesio Ibáñez Aguirre, who has worked with the auditor Colmenares since 1986, when he was Secretary of Finance of the Government of Oaxaca and Ibáñez his subordinate as Undersecretary of Revenue, during the government of Heladio Ramírez. In addition, he also worked since 2008 in the office Colmenares Páramo y Asociados.
That area is also the only one that can make resolutions, that is, forgive the irregularities detected in the audits.
Lozano denounced that two technical opinions should have been criminally denounced for the probable commission of crimes, but instead, they were solved without being “duly founded and motivated.”
Find out: Morena ‘blocks’ its deputy who asks to appear to the auditor Colmenares for millionaire remodeling
Lozano informed the deputies that since July 2020, his area concluded 60 technical opinions for an approximate amount of one billion pesos with possible irregularities, of which 10 already have some review in the Legal Affairs Unit, but so far they are still waiting for the Special Follow-up Audit to review the information, and have not been reported to the Prosecutor’s Office.
In fact, the Colmenares administration has decreased the number of complaints for possible crimes committed by public officials by 70%. From 2018 – when it took over – to November 2021, the ASF filed 182 criminal complaints. In contrast, in the previous four years, in the administration of Juan Manuel Portal, there were 592 complaints.
So far, the Surveillance Commission, chaired by PRI member Pablo Angulo, has not issued a public position regarding what is happening in the Audit, despite the fact that the responsibility of the commission is precisely to review the audit body.
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