BOLIVIA-GOVERNMENT – TELAM Agency
The Bolivian Environment Minister, Juan Santos Cruz, resigned from his position after being involved in a corruption complaint, the Minister of the Presidency, María Nela Prada, reported today.
“The Minister of the Environment and Water yesterday (Friday) presented his irrevocable resignation from his position, a resignation (…) that has already been accepted by our president of the Plurinational State of Bolivia Luis Arce,” Prada said at a press conference.
Cruz, who had been in office since November 2020, sent a letter to Arce in which he assured that he was resigning so as not to “tarnish all the work” that the government carried out “in favor of the Bolivian people.”
“In the face of the media attack from the radical right and internal enemies that I have been receiving in recent times and to defend myself as a natural person, I have made the firm decision to present my irrevocable resignation from office,” he said in the letter, according to the ABI agency. .
His departure comes after a complaint was made known about the collection of bribes within the ministry, which were supposedly used for the purchase of real estate and which led to the arrest of an official and the nephew of the now ex-minister, the newspapers Página Siete reported. and Duty.
Before Prada’s resignation, he had said that the Bolivian government was committed to transparency and the fight against corruption and asked that justice act rigorously and exhaustively in the face of any complaint of this type.
“It is essential to act quickly and apply all the necessary sanctions, so that this type of harmful practice is not repeated in our country,” he said.
For his part, Cruz this week had denied the accusations and assured that he had filed a complaint to find those responsible.
“As a person and a public servant, I clearly state that I submit to any investigation presented before the instances called for by law, but I am not going to enter into that dirty game of anonymous complaints without legal support or foundation,” he said.
Source: Ambito
