Carlos Gustavo Cano has been replaced as chairman of the board of directors of Ecopetrol, the Colombian oil company in which the National Government is the majority shareholder, just one day after being appointed, after President Gustavo Petro disapproved his appointment, according to Cano himself.
This Friday, a letter was published through social networks in which the former president of the board of the oil company has explained Petro’s disagreement with his appointment, for which he would have proceeded to order related directors to dismiss him, despite having been appointed unanimously just 24 hours earlier, as confirmed by the Colombian newspaper ‘El Tiempo’.
«I regret to inform you that when this decision of the Board was made public, President Petro raised his voice of protest and disapproval, and, through several of his immediate collaborators, ordered the members of the Board who are close to him, and also those who are not, to advance in this morning’s session my dismissal as chairman of the board after 24 hours of my appointment as such,» says the letter published by ‘Semana’.
However, another source of the Board has denied this version to the Colombian newspaper and has assured that Petro «had nothing to do» in the decision taken, since the board was composed of two sessions -held on Thursday and Friday- so that, «although Cano was voted for in the first part, in the second part it was decided to vote for the renewal».
Ecopetrol has confirmed through the Financial Superintendence and in its social networks that the new president of the company’s board of directors is Saúl Kattan Cohen, and that Mauricio Cabrera Galvis, who had been elected together with Cano, remains as vice-president.
The Colombian president has not remained out of the controversy and has assured in his Twitter profile that «Ecopetrol configures its board of directors like any other company according to the shareholding, the majority of shares belong to the State», he also added that «the new board of directors is formed by people who have already increased the value of companies such as EEB (Grupo Energía Bogotá) and ETB (Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Bogotá)».
«The rights of minority shareholders will always be respected. The directive of the President of the Republic for the action of its representatives in the new board of directors is to increase the value of Ecopetrol», he assured in this social network.
