Escudo de Colombia y texto de la Unidad para las Víctimas

Unit for the Victims denounces possible irregularities regarding the Victims’ Reparation Fund assets administration

The Unit for the Victims’ Director, Patricia Tobon Yagari asked the control entities to carry out investigations and special audits within their abilities on the Victims’ Reparation Fund. She also asked for preventive and corrective actions to assure the victims’ rights and safeguard entity’s the patrimony and transparency.

This request was done after a preliminary analysis of the Unit’s condition. As stated by Tobon Yagari, this new administration identified possible irregularities that have effects on the individual and collective reparation of the armed conflict victims.

“It is important to start pertinent actions, so these types of conducts stop. In this Government, we are resolved on guarding the institutions’ resources and transparency. The victims of the armed conflict have suffered multiple unfortunate events, and it is impossible that resources used for their compensation can be disturbed by possible corruption acts”, she stated.

About the Reparation Fund

One of the identified situations was the excessively low value of some of the rental fees for assets managed by the Victims’ Reparation Fund: the work team reported 43 real estate with rental fees value ranging between $4,437 and $103,000 COP. Among these there are farms, lots, and parcels, mostly rural.

Another subject regarding the 2,346 assets managed by the Fund as of September 2022 was the following: more than 900 of these assets are irregularly occupied, are decaying, or present failure to meet their main objective, which is monetization. Currently, the Unit is investigating the state in which these assets were delivered by the Attorney General’s Office to the Fund.

On the other hand, there is a high percentage of assets with tenants that owe rent, and the Fund didn’t advance administrative or effective legal actions to recover the asset or the money. In addition, it was identified that some assets were leased to the same person without analyzing the profiles and background of both the tenant and co-signer.

Director Patricia Tobon Yagari also reported that, within the Unit for the Victims, information requested to verify the entity’s condition has been delayed.

Delays in the reparation

Tobon Yagari also referred to the gaps, reports and delays she found in the Unit regarding its objective to repair the armed conflict victims. As revealed, during the Victims Law, only a little more than one million of the nine million armed conflict victims registered in the Single Victims Registry have been repaired.

Furthermore, the director stated that, for example, regarding individual reparation, during the entity’s operation, only 1,318,634 armed conflict victims have been compensated with an execution of $9.86 billion COP. She added this means a backlog for compensation of 6,071,978 victims, which means that if the same execution rate continues, these people could only be compensated until 2082.

In terms of collective reparation, she mentioned there are 857 Collective Reparation Subjects in the Single Victims Registry, and only little more than 56 have been repaired, which implies a setback that could only be repaired until the year 2046.

“We have four years to carry out integral reparation actions and attend the victims’ needs. However, I find many notes from the Comptroller’s Office and the Ombudsman’s Office that show the gaps between the norms and the entity’s non-compliance being repetitive with the conflict victims, and this has affected their repair and the care models that aren’t resolved with dignity,” she said.

(End/GGA/COG/RAM)