The president faces a political trial promoted by correísmo. He was accused of embezzlement because he did not break the corruption network in Flopec set up during the correat.
Flopec started in the 70s under the military government as a joint venture with the Japanese Kawasaki with three brand new tankers. The government gave him the exclusivity of transporting hydrocarbons (law on cargo reservation). This protection was justified during the launch period. But still fifty years later. Flopec, now a public company, did not take advantage of this, it no longer has modern ships and was content to be an intermediary that charges other shippers for its exclusivity. Inflated freight rates are compensated by a penalty on the selling price of oil, which is a fiscal sacrifice.
In Correato, a corruption scheme was set up in the export of oil that cost the state billions of dollars. Canadian Raymond Kohut admitted in the US that he paid at least $70 million in bribes to Ecuadorian officials since 2009. He was the CEO of Gunvor, a fuel broker.
The Flopec matter is a small part of that network of corruption. What is presented below is the result of the study of documents and is supported by the reports of EL UNIVERSO, planv.com.ec and periodismodeinvestigacion.com.
In 2014, Flopec regulates the licensing of other ships to provide hydrocarbon export and import services and signs an association agreement with Andes Tankers, a subsidiary of Gunvor, which Kohut founded the previous year for this very purpose. Andes does not have tankers, but hires them and then subleases them to Flopec at a higher price.
Gunvor replaced Andes with the Amazon Tanker Pool, with which Flopec signed a two-year non-renegotiation and international arbitration contract with Flopec in December 2020, tying the future government’s hands.
Guillermo Lasso becomes in May 2021, and in September the board of Flopec condemned the embezzlement in the Amazon Tanker Pool contract. In November 2021, the supervisor Flopec noticed the need to reform this harmful contract, but did not comment on possible embezzlement. Flopec reformed the contract and had a record profit in 2022. Whether this is because of better conditions or because Petroecuador was paying a higher rate is not clear.
Around these central elements revolve others that give it color. The manager of Flopec who received the controller’s opinion, Johnny Estupiñán, informed Amazon of the termination of the contract, which responded to the contractor as saliva because of the international arbitration clause. Therefore, the cancellation request was withdrawn. He was fired by Hernán Luque on March 9, 2022. There are audio recordings of Luque talking to Cherres Faggioni about “swimming pools” (Amazon?) and says: “Flopec is a beauty, velvet… Manages well”. The prosecutor’s office has not yet declared whether there are embezzlements or who committed them.
If what was initiated in the Assembly declared about presidential governance, it would be possible for members of parliament to vote for party discipline. But there is a vote on whether Lasso committed embezzlement in relation to Flopec and what is appropriate is that the members of the assembly vote based on the evidence. (OR)
Source: Eluniverso
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