Lots of questions, but few answers surround the traffic accident involving the Ministro de Obras Públicas y Transportes (MOPT), Pedro Castro, last Wednesday (April 23).
This may turn out to be another scandal to hit the Chinchilla administration with only days to May 8.
By way of the social media, Alberto Rodriguez Baldi, posted on Facebook, that following the accident at 9:20pm in the area of the Antigua Galera, in Curridabat, the minister was taken home in a Tránsito (traffic) police vehicle.
Baldi questions this action since the minister is assigned a government vehicle to use as this discretion. Baldi says that according to the Consejo de Seguridad Vial (Cosevi) – Road Safety Council, a division of the MOPT, and which Castro is the boss – regulations do not permit the use of traffic patrol vehicles used for personal use.
Nothing really unusual here, the officials, indirect employees of Castro, were taking the “big boss” home after the accident.
But what happens next is what appears to be a scandal brewing.
After the Facebook publication, the online Spanish language news, CRHOY.com, decided to follow up on the incident. But they ware stonewalled, the Policia de Tránsito spokesperson Angie Meneses would only confirm the accident, “a typical traffic accident”, but would not confirm nor deny if the minister was taken home in a patrol vehicle.
Moreso, the director of the Policia de Tránsito, Germán Marín, recommended that the minister be contact directly for any comment on the matter and was not aware of the Cosevi regulation on the subject, the use of a public vehicle for private use by the minister.
All that can be known from this incident is that no one at the MOPT or Policia de Transito is willing to talk on the subject, there is public response to the results of the breathalyzer tests and that two uniformed traffic officials took Castro home in the patrol vehicle.
CRHOY.com says that to Castro have gone an unanswered and his not replying to emails. The only response so far by Fanny Alvarado, a ministerial aide, who says that Castro will not comment on the postings in the social media.
Source: CRHOY.com
