In September 2022, President Rodrigo Chaves appointed Marta Esquivel as President of Social Security. Photo via Social Security.
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Published
on Friday, October 11,
2024
By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Criminal Court
of Treasury ordered on Thursday that Marta
Esquivel-Rodriguez, president of Social
Security, and four members of the
organization be suspended from their
duties for six months as part of
pre-trial actions related to an
investigation into an alleged
million-dollar scheme.
The judges
approved the request of the Deputy
Prosecutor's Office for Probity,
Transparency, and Anti-Corruption
(FAPTA) for pre-trial actions against
Esquivel and the other accused,
Camareno, Gómez, Rojas, and Gutiérrez. These individuals
served on the Social Security Board of
Directors for 17 months, from February
2023 to July 2024.
The judge's
instructions for these individuals
include a six-month suspension from
their roles, a veto to access the Social
Security facilities and a prohibition on
communicating with witnesses in the
investigation.
The
case began when the suspects allegedly
annulled one agreement for choosing
contractors for
managing
at least 138 public clinics, known as
Ebais. The
Prosecutor's Office investigation
found that after allegedly annulling
that agreement, the defendants used
their board positions to create a new
deal to hire some cooperative firms
that would benefit from that second
contract. A
cooperative business is a group of
people who
work
together to create entrepreneurial
activities such as finance,
manufacturing and services,
among others. The
suspects allegedly changed the
agreement to hire the cooperatives.
This
action despite
being aware of a previous study that
determined that the cooperative firms'
services would result in an annual
increase of more than $23 million per
year compared with the current cost
that Social Security pays to the
private companies in charge of the
Ebais managing. Additionally,
the Prosecutor is
also
investigating
the agreement businesses' contractual
period for ten years. If
that new agreement reached the
fulfilled period of ten years, the
estimated cost of the alleged fraud
against Social Security would be over
$230 million. In September 2022, Chaves appointed Marta Esquivel as President of Social Security. The Social Security (CCSS) is the state-owned organization in charge of most of the nation's public health sector.
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