Workers' unions attended the Mining Commission of the Lower House of Chile on Wednesday afternoon, where they exposed what they called "a true police plot."
It was at the last annual meeting of shareholders of the National Copper Corporation of Chile (Codelco) when the president of the board of directors, Máximo Pacheco, said he “found out through the press” about the complaint filed by the State Defense Council (CDE) for a “network of malicious conduct” that would have damaged the company's assets in 2017, when Nelson Pizarro headed the state company.
According to different reports from the Chilean Copper Commission (Cochilco), it will be an irregular tender related to the company Outotec, regarding the flash furnace refinement project in the Chuquicamata division and whose service cost almost US$ 9, 2 millions.
In this way, the property damage generated by this tender due to failures and deviations would amount to US$ 14 million .
The plot continues due to the CDE complaint against Codelco for alleged fraud
Under this context and in an unprecedented manner, representatives of the Chuquicamata workers' unions attended the Mining Commission of the Lower House on Wednesday afternoon, where they exposed what they have called "a true police plot."
The president of union No. 3, Hernán Guerrero, called the group of characters from the state company who were involved in what happened in 2017 the “Rancagua train.”
One of them, according to what they point out, still inside Codelco would be "José Sanhueza, born in El Teniente, part of the 'train' that closed Ventanas. Today he is hired there when he was not able to carry out the foundries and refineries in Codelco, “The only thing he did was close the Windows division.”
This executive was recently announced by Enami as the new general manager of the project to modernize the Paipote Smelter, an initiative that is in the processing stage at the Atacama Environmental Evaluation Service.
Máximo Pacheco maintains that the Public Ministry does not indicate the existence of fraud
On the other side, Pacheco strongly insisted throughout the session on the importance of making it transparent to citizens "that here we seek to punish those who are responsible," and that does not mean that it should be indicated that the state company "is stealing the money." .
"It's not that there was fraud here at Codelco, it's not that someone stole the money. Nothing that the three audits say, nothing that the reports say and nothing that the Public Ministry has said indicates that," the executive stressed.
Congressional reactions
This story has tense the discussion between the Mining Commission of the Lower House and the state copper company. The RN deputy, José Miguel Castro, alluded to the possible closeness of the board with some of the names that led the operation in those years.
“If you talk to me about 'Pepe', I mean I imagine he will be a friend of yours, if you talk to him about Pepe. Yes, there is nepotism and corruption in Codelco,” Castro stated.
The independent deputy for the PPD bench, Cristian Tapia, maintained that no one is assuming this and other irregularities that are occurring within the state company.
“The boards of directors and the leadership of Codelco have not taken any money to invest in the company, unlike private companies, and here no one leaves Codelco. We lost so many millions of pesos, bad decisions were made, workers died,” Tapia accused.
In other issues involving the copper company, the president of the Financial Market Commission (CMF), Solange Berstein, assured “that they will deal with as quickly as possible” the statement requested again by the Chinese company Tianqi regarding the SQM Codelco agreement.
