Lasso will not appear before the Ecuadorian Parliament for the Pandora Papers

President EcuadorianGuillermo Lasso, investigated by a parliamentary commission for his connection with the Pandora Papers, announced this Thursday that he will not appear before that instance because he considers that the Legislature has no competence to investigate it.

The Constitutional Guarantees Commission of the National Assembly (Parliament) had scheduled Lasso’s appearance for tomorrow, Friday, after having postponed an initial meeting last Wednesday, to which the president excused himself from attending.

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In a new letter addressed to the president of the Constitutional Guarantees Commission, José Fernando Cabascango, Lasso confirmed his position that the parliamentary body has no competence to investigate him and ratified the terms of a previous letter in the same spirit.

Lasso has warned that the investigation revolves around a constitutional prohibition, in force since 2017, which prevents any electoral candidate from being qualified as a candidate if they possess capital or assets in tax havens.

The president explained that in that year, after the popular consultation that the law protected, he got rid of all his investments in “off shore” entities or tax havens and that, with this, he was able to register as a presidential candidate and be endorsed by the body electoral.

Likewise, he stressed that between him, the Banco de Guayaquil (of which he owned), the Corporación Multibg SA and the GLM Trust, which are part of his companies, have paid 588,864,479.38 dollars of taxes in the country, which which, as he has said, makes him one of the largest Ecuadorian taxpayers.

In his first letter, the content of which he ratifies in the second, Lasso also dismisses the argument of the legislative commission that the Pandora Papers scandal, which sparks him, has generated a supposed “serious social commotion.”

With this argument, according to the president, an attempt is made to “circumvent the legally established procedure to dismiss officials who fail to comply” with the regulations.

Lasso considers that these types of cases should be dealt with by the State Comptroller General (court of accounts) and that, if any responsibility is determined in that instance, then it could go to the Constitutional Court and from there to Parliament to adopt the decision. that corresponds according to the law.

The president also reiterated his invitation for the members of the Constitutional Guarantees Commission of Parliament to visit him at the Presidential Palace in Quito.

The visit of the legislative commissioners should take place after all the proceedings that they have programmed with this investigation are carried out, by virtue of their right to “know in advance the assertions that have been given in said forum,” the letter specifies.

The Comptroller’s Office, as Lasso himself has warned, has already begun an investigation, as has the State Attorney General’s Office, following a complaint filed by the former indigenous presidential candidate Yaku Pérez.

For her part, Assemblywoman Paola Cabezas, from the opposition UNES movement and who is part of the Constitutional Guarantees Commission, insisted that President Lasso should appear before that legislative body, as any public official that is required in the control processes.

“The President of the Republic should not feel persecuted or judged,” even more so when he has ratified that he has not owned assets in tax havens since 2017, the legislator remarked after noting that the commissioners will not attend Lasso’s invitation to the Government Palace, since It is a process in which he is obliged to appear “at the house of the people.”

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Deshawn