The National Foundation for Development (FUNDE) has denounced before the Government Ethics Tribunal (TEG) the Minister of Justice and Security, Mauricio Ramírez Landaverde, and the Vice Minister Raúl López, for allegedly having violated the Ethics Law by incorporating an NGO to manage the stores in the penal centers.
According to the representatives of FUNDE and its Anti-Corruption and Legal Advice Center (known as ALAC), the officials in question may have violated the ethical prohibition set forth in Article 6, paragraph g, of the Government Ethics Law, which, in essence, prohibits public servants from accepting or maintaining employment or contractual relationships that undermine their impartiality or cause a conflict of interest.
In the complaint brief, filed on March 14, FUNDE-ALAC notes that the officials appeared to form ASOCAMBIO in July 2018, a date on which they still held management positions in the Ministry of Justice and Security.
The denounced officials and the director of Penitentiary Centers, Marco Tulio Lima, are members of the referred NGO that manages investments and profits from the sale of consumer products in prisons.
Ramírez Landaverde is the president of ASOCAMBIO.
The minister defended the creation of the association and his membership in it. He stated that the funds received are to support and finance the different needs of the prisons, including the maintenance of the medical clinics. But he also said that not only are they "duly registered" as an association, but they are also supervised by the Ministry of the Interior.
Source: El Salvador
