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Noticias Caracol
Ecuador’s Governor-General Guillermo Lasso used international shell companies to avoid taxes, covered his tracks with the help of the Ministry of Finance: whistleblower

QUITO- A whistleblower who worked for Ecuador’s Ministry of Public Finances alleges that Ecuador’s Governor-General Guillermo Lasso violated tax laws after he used dozens of shell companies and offshore bank accounts to hide millions from Gran Colombian and Ecuadorian authorities. The whistleblower released a total 12,000 files, emails, text conversations detailing how the Governor-General became the owner of nearly a dozen shell companies through which millions were poured into foreign real estate and offshore bank accounts in tax havens in Europe. Furthermore the whistleblower’s report alleges that Lasso colluded with the Ministry of Finance with the help of Finance Minister Angela Rosado to hide the financial irregularities from the General Assembly.

Gran Colombian anti-corruption law requires financial transparency at the executive level of government, however, it only defines it for the federal executive, it largely allows constituent republics to develop their own policies to ensure transparency. Ecuadorian law requires the Governor-General, Assistant Governor-General and Minister of the General Cabinet to submit themselves to yearly audits by the Finance Ministry and the General Assembly’s Joint Committee for Financial Transparency. The whistleblower report alleges that the Governor-General and Minister of Finance used the power and scale of the Ministry of Finance to shield the existence of the shell companies from General Assembly’s audit. The report alleges that thousands of documents detailing financial transactions were destroyed or hidden by the Ministry. The final report found no irregularities, with legislators assuming nothing until this report.

If true, the popular Governor-General could face impeachment at the hands of the Social Democratic Party of Ecuador (PSDE-PND), a New Democratic Party (the national center-left party) affiliate, that oppose Guillermo Lasso and his center-right government. Impeachment and removal would require a simple majority in Ecuador’s Chamber of Deputies and a supermajority vote in its Senate. The two-thirds majority requirement in the Senate, however, can be waived in favor of a simple majority requirement of the question of whether or not to remove the Governor-General is out forward to the public in a recall election.

Lasso and Minister of Finance Rosado have both denied the allegations with Lasso calling it a “brazen political stunt”. Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies María del Carmen Pintado (PSDE-PND) has announced that an official investigation by the Joint Committee on Financial Transparency will be forthcoming with impeachment “certainly on the table”.