- President Guillermo Lasso asked leaders of all state enterprises to resign amid a large corruption scandal.
- EMCO posted on Twitter a letter asking general managers of 13 state firms to make positions available, naming Petroecuador and National Mining Company.
- Public prosecutor opened an investigation after La Posta reported irregular contract awards in the electricity sector implicating businessman Danilo Carrera.
- Hernan Luque, Lasso's EMCO delegate, fled Ecuador January 9; Lasso ordered an anti-corruption probe and denied government criminal involvement.
Ecuador President Guillermo Lasso has asked the leaders of all state enterprises to resign following a vast corruption scandal that has even implicated his own brother-in-law.
Joaquin Ponce, the director of the EMCO state body that coordinates public enterprises, published a message on the EMCO Twitter account on Tuesday evening requesting “the availability of the positions of general managers” in all state institutions “by order of the president of the republic.”
The message was accompanied by a letter signed by Ponce and addressed to all 13 state institutions, including the oil company Petroecuador, the Electric Corporation of Ecuador and the National Mining Company, among others.
It comes following the opening of an investigation by the public prosecutor after the online newspaper La Posta published allegations of irregularities in the appointment and attribution of contracts to companies in the electricity sector.
One of the people implicated in the scandal is Lasso’s brother-in-law Danilo Carrera, a businessman.
Another person embroiled in the affair is a top government official nominated by Lasso himself in 2021 as his delegate on the EMCO board of directors, Hernan Luque, who fled Ecuador on January 9.
Lasso has also ordered the anti-corruption ministry to investigate and denied that his own government was involved in any “criminal structure.”
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