The president of Colombia, Iván Duque, has ruled out this Monday the proposal of the former tenant of Casa Nariño Álvaro Uribe to nationalize the indebted Empresas Públicas de Medellín (EPM), which carries, according to some estimates, an overdraft of almost eight billion Colombian pesos (about 1,900 million euros).”There is no cause for taking possession of the company, nor are there any grounds for intervention; to intervene without cause would be to go against Law 142 because there is no failure to provide the service,” Duque has justified.

The words of the Colombian president come shortly after Uribe, in a dialogue for the Caracol Radio station, was in favor of intervening EPM, the largest public company in Colombia that provides energy, water and gas services, and which is under administration from the municipality of Medellín.

“The National Government should think about the intervention in EPM,” defended Uribe, since the risk rating agencies have lowered the value of this public company to triple B, “which would generate a loss of investment grade,” he said. .

“My motivation is to protect that great heritage of Colombians. For me it is not easy to get into the subject, but I am concerned about the risk that this heritage has,” he assured.

However, the president of Colombia has subsequently detailed for the National Radio station that an action of these characteristics “would imply that all financial liabilities” of the company are frozen, generating in turn “a situation of stress in the financial system that could be worse than the disease. ”

“We have always given EPM all the support to face situations of all kinds and, at the same time, we have been clear in the interest that the National Government has that the companies of our country are also successful in their investments outside of Colombia” , has stressed.

A “CASTROCHAVISTA” PROPOSAL

The measure launched by Uribe has not been well received by the mayor of Medellín, Daniel Quintero, who has censured the “desperate interest” in the formation of the former president, Centro Democrático, “to recover what they lost for good at the polls”, he has also said for Caracol Radio, where he has asked him to put down those “Castro-Chavez ideas.”

“I never thought I would see a trill (tweet) from Uribe asking that EPM be expropriated to give it to the National Government. As long as he is mayor of Medellín, EPM will continue to be public, of Medellín, of Antioquia and of all Colombians,” he reaffirmed shortly before to through your Twitter account.

Who has also wanted to participate in this controversy has been one of the main representatives of the country’s left, the leader of Colombia Humana, Gustavo Petro, who has also used social networks to remember that EPM’s problems are the responsibility of “Uribe and his friends”.

“It is obvious that a company like EPM that they put in a work like Hidroituango (a millionaire failed hydroelectric project), and that they privatize it de facto, transferring public money to business groups, has to be hit,” Petro recalled.

“But the person responsible for this is called Uribe and his friends,” Petro insisted, who has also blamed the former mayor of Medellín, Sergio Fajardo.

 

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