The Lower House of Congress voted to suspend the Minister of Education, Yasna Provoste, for serious dereliction of her Constitutional duties. The Chambers of Deputies voted 59 to 55 to fire the Minister. Now is up to the Senate to either uphold or quash the Deputies' decision.
The vote comes after a more than two-months of news and debate on a serious accounting disorders found inside the Ministry of Education that dates back to 2004 and 2005; a period before this Government. The opposition right-wing Alliance coalition pushed the case until it filed in mid March a Constitution Accusation against Provoste for dereliction of her Ministerial duties.
The Alliance argued the Minister did not act with promptness to fix the serious accounting problems found by the Auditor General. The Minister countered saying her Ministry was taking actions, she assured the public funds were not misspent and denied it a case of corruption.
The Ministry of Education is responsible for funding public and semi-private schools. The monies in the accounting mess were destined to pay schools for the students attending classes, pay for teachers and educational support personnel. The funds were also destined toward breakfast, lunch and snack programs.
Provoste defended herself saying she was taking action, but the opposition charged she did not act fast enough to remedy the mess and guaranteed the public the monies did not go missing.
The deposed Minister called the entire process a political attack, making her to be a convenient scapegoat before the Auditor General files the final report on the financial records sent from the Ministry to be audited. Provoste says the accusers and those who voted against her in Congress were politically motivated. Provoste says the presumption of innocence was not invoked, she described opposition victory, pyrrhic.
The opposition was able to gather enough votes because two Government Concertacion coalition Congressmen did not vote and four former members of the Christian Democratic Party, part of the ruling coalition, voted with the opposition.
It is up to the Senate to either confirm or deny the Constitutional accusation. If the ruling is upheld, Provoste will be the first Government Minister sacked by Congress since the Salvador Allende administration (1970-73).
