Chamber representative Katherine Miranda presented a delicate complaint against the government of President Petro for the awarding of state advertising contracts worth $71,893 million pesos, signed just days before the entry into force of the Electoral Guarantees Law.
According to the congresswoman, between January 26 and 30, 2026, a “million-dollar and accelerated” official contract was carried out “in the midst of an economic and environmental emergency and a few hours after the Guarantees Law came into force,” a regulation that prohibits direct contracting months before the elections to avoid the use of the public budget for electoral purposes.
“It was a direct contract, by hand, accelerated and highly concentrated. About 90% of those resources remained in a single entity, RTVC, with more than $64,000 million awarded in a matter of hours,” said Miranda, who revealed that there were 12 contracts that concentrated that million-dollar sum towards the public media system.
The legislator made a comparison with the same electoral period four years ago. “In the same week of January 2022, the government at that time awarded around $1.5 billion to RTVC, while in 2026 the figure exceeded $64 billion, which represents an increase of more than 4,000% in the same period and towards the same entity,” he revealed.
Also read: Trust and ‘Metro Culture’: More than 9 thousand items were recovered at stations during 2025
Miranda warned that these contracts include campaigns, institutional outreach strategies and media plans of several national entities.
The resources come from different government portfolios: $14.5 billion from the Single Fund for Information and Communications Technologies, $10.6 billion from the Ministry of Education, $6.8 billion from the Ministry of Health and almost $8.0 billion from the Ministry of Justice, among others.
“Signing more than 70 billion pesos in institutional propaganda just before the Guarantees Law, while the country is going through an economic and social emergency, is a lack of respect for Colombians. The institutional guideline cannot become a tool for political promotion in an electoral year,” said the congresswoman.
Miranda assured that he had transferred the complaint to the Comptroller’s Office and the Attorney General’s Office so that they could determine if there was an alleged misuse of public resources for political purposes.
“Public resources belong to the citizens, not to the governments in power. Institutional communication cannot be used to campaign disguised as information. Colombians deserve clarity and respect for the rules,” said Katherine Miranda.
More news from Colombia