Former Quibdó Mayor Martín Emilio Sánchez Valencia Charged Over Cleaning Service Contract

Colombia’s Fiscalía General de la Nación filed a formal accusation against former Quibdó mayor Martín Emilio Sánchez Valencia, former secretary general Gloria Lizeth Palacios Córdoba, and former municipal contracting coordinator Beymar Alexander Mosquera Borja. Prosecutors allege the three officials engaged in illegal practices during the pre‑contractual phase of two public tenders aimed at hiring a cleaning‑service firm for schools, the municipal education secretary, central administration offices and other city entities. The contract, signed in February 2021, was valued at COP 1.568 billion and is alleged to have bypassed mandatory legal requirements, including the arbitrary removal of one tender from the SECOP II platform, the insertion of documents from an unrelated process lacking a public call and prior studies, and the modification of the schedule and budget without technical support. The contract was also awarded outside the deadline set in the tender specifications. The three defendants must now appear before a court to answer to the crime of contracting without compliance with legal requirements.