Guatemala Fires Minister for Alleged Corruption; Replaces him with Journalist
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Good help is hard to find. Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom knows it – he recently fired his interior minister for alleged corruption and has now replaced him with a former journalist.
Colom says he found irregularities in a contract signed by Interior Minister Raul Velasquez to buy fuel for the country’s national police. Colom then announced he was firing Velasquez in a televised message to the nation Sunday night.
Local media say that Velasquez authorized a $6.2 million contract with a private company to buy fuel for police but that the company embezzled the money.
Colom replaced Velasquez with Carlos Menocal, a former journalist who was a presidential commissioner responsible for combatting organized crime and corruption.