MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 25th May, 2020) A judge in Bolivia has placed former Health Minister Marcelo Navajas in pretrial detention for three months over the corrupt purchase of ventilators during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the newspaper La Razon reports.
Navajas was arrested this past week while still in office. After the minister was detained, interim President Jeanine Anez Chavez removed him from his post.
During a 10-hour court hearing on Sunday, judge Hugo Huacani ordered Navajas to be incarcerated at La Paz's San Pedro prison, the newspaper stated. Three other officials, including Fernando Valenzuela, the former legal affairs director at Bolivia's Health Ministry, have also been placed in pretrial detention for six months.
The scandal relates to the purchase of ventilators from Spain, which, upon arrival, were found not to meet World Health Organization standards. Later, it became known that the Bolivian government paid more than $27,000 for each of the 170 ventilators, a fee many times higher than market value.
Since the start of the outbreak, 6,263 cases of COVID-19 have been reported in Bolivia as of Monday, including 348 new positive tests that were confirmed over the preceding 24 hours. The country's coronavirus disease death toll currently stands at 250.
