The President of Ecuador, Guillermo Lasso, has appointed Fernando Santos Alvite as the new Minister of Energy and Mines after the resignation of his predecessor, Xavier Vera, last Friday due to an investigation against him for an alleged bribery offense.
«It is always a pleasure to integrate to the Government’s cabinet valuable people, who have a deep knowledge of their areas of work, and in this case, with a great experience in the legal field and a broad vision of the energy world», said Lasso during the ceremony.
The appointment took place at the Carondelet Palace, seat of the Government, where the newly appointed minister stated that «there is no need to hide the problems that the oil industry has brought», such as, he pointed out, «the cancer of corruption», as reported by Telesur.
Santos Alvite was already in charge of this portfolio between 1987 and 1988 and was a lawyer and head of the Legal Affairs Unit of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
The former minister resigned last week after the Prosecutor’s Office entered several properties as part of the investigation in which he is accused of bribery, after a person published an audio where he claims that he asked him for US$ 150,000 in exchange for a public position.
The Secretary of Public Administration and Cabinet, Iván Correa, transmitted his resignation and affirmed that the Government had made an «exhaustive» analysis of the facts, although Vera affirmed that same day that he had the support of Lasso.
