Investigation
El Salvador's interim president got $1.2 millions without justification when Bukele's led the mayor town of San Salvador
A lot of municipal funds went to Claudia Juana Rodríguez when Nayib Bukele was the San Salvador’s mayor. Just in the last three weeks as municipal treasurer, before Bukele left his position as the mayor office and ran for the presidency, Rodríguez got more than $230 thousand dollars through checks to her name without legal justification. Two months and a half later, the political party Nuevas Ideas was registered and Rodríguez was listed as the financial secretary. Nuevas Ideas is the official political party created by Bukele.
By Bryan Avelar | December 7, 2023
Edition by Ricardo Vaquerano | Translation by Alejandra Barrera
Claudia Juana Rodríguez, who acts as El Salvador’s president since december 1, 2023, got without legal justification 1.2 millions of dollars from the mayor’s office of San Salvador between 2015 and 2018, while Nayib Bukele was the mayor and she was the treasurer.
An official register from the general treasurer details the emission of thousands of checks from three bank accounts of the city hall. Between them, there are 79 that are under the name of Claudia Juana Rodríguez, this was made behind the city council’s back.
In general, during the three years of Bukele as the mayor, the checks to Rodríguez exceed more than $25,000 thousand dollars and this was increased to have an average of one check per month, but when the period of Bukele was in his last month and he was preparing his presidential candidacy the emission of the checks went faster and just in April 2018 the amount reached $500,000 thousand of dollars. Two and a half months later, the political party Nuevas Ideas with whom the mayor pretended to compete for the presidency of El Salvador called to the supreme electoral court doors to ask for the inscription as an official political party and on their scorecard appeared Claudia Juana Rodríguez as their financial secretary.
The checks to the city hall’s treasurer did not stop even when she got a license to be out of her charge for two months. The city council was not aware of this. This transaction of giving money is not justified by any legal process because it is not for her salary due to the fact is too high and on the other hand she is not a real state or provide a service to the city hall, besides she is not the responsible of having the current fund or the petty cash which is small amount of money that sometimes is used by any institution to solve any unexpected need.
Claudia Juana Rodríguez was called to exercise during 6 months as the El Salvador’s interim president, this is meanwhile Bukele is dedicated to search the reelection against the law by the constitution of El Salvador. Rodríguez became in 2012 the woman in charge to handle the money in the political life of Nayib Bukele and now in this official document from the municipal government, in power of GatoEncerrado, shows a dark mechanism for channeling public funds whose destination and purpose remain secret.
The checks issued from the three different bank accounts of the San Salvador City Hall were delivered since the beginning of the first month of their management, from May 2015 to April 2018. 36 of them were issued for an amount that went between $26,886 and $332,00 thousands of dollars.
The document that GatoEncerrado got access is a massive compendium of data, and beyond what it tells about the checks to Rodríguez, also it registers the emission of 21,780 checks from 3 accounts that belongs to the municipality, one from Banco Agrícola, another one from Banco de America Central (BAC) and one from Banco Cuscatlán.
The account from Banco Agrícola is called “pagadora (payments)” from that account were issued the highest amount from 2015 to 2018 for a total of $29,483,537. This period however covers 4 months of the previous administration and 8 months after because the period of a mayor starts from May and ends in April.
The use of this account was versatile. From the account was not only the transactions to payroll payments but for example it was used to pay vendors, to indemnitee the personal who resigned, and funds were transferred to other institution’s delegation.
The three accounts that appear in the register and from which Rodríguez also got checks from, are order in separate register per month.
The monthly registration of the checks has many columns meant to be detailed the number of the check, the amount and if it was made some type of retention. among these columns there is one that has a headline “Beneficiario/Concepto”, that refers to who receives the check, and in which concept it was delivered.
In the case of the checks issued to Claudia Juana Rodríguez, in the column “Beneficiario/Concepto” only shows her full name. Besides the document does not show any retention for checks that exceed $20,000 dollars.
This past November 30st Rodríguez obtained the position of presidential appointee from the congress to replace Bukele for 6 months meanwhile he starts his campaign to be reelected.
The Rodríguez’s nomination also breaks the constitution, on the articles 131 and 168 forces that for this process the president proposes to the legislature 2 shortlist of three candidates, one for the first presidential designation and another one to the second. The legislature should choose one person from each shortlist to be on the presidential line of succession between the 3rd and 4th position below the president and the vice president. The constitution also stablishes in 2 articles that the person who will oversee the presidency needs to take the oath of law to the assembly to be able to take the charge of the position. Claudia Juana Rodríguez did not show up to the plenary session.
Who is Claudia Juana Rodríguez?
For over a decade, Bukele’s family has placed her where the money is, in both the private and public spheres. She has enjoyed this trust before Nayib Bukele began his political career as mayor of Nuevo Cuscatlán in 2012. Started her relationship with the family as employee and then as the finance director of Obermet, S.A de C.V., the publicity agency from which Bukele earned more than $800,000 thousand between 2012 and 2015 and according to the supreme court of justice he never declared the taxes.
Once Bukele became president on June 1-2019 he continued giving her positions in which she was able to manipulate public funds. She was the first financial manager from his presidency. In November 2021 she was appointed as the president of the Dirección de Obras Municipales, most of the funds channeled to municipalities were hundreds of millions of dollars, the management of which is now hidden from the public. In March of the
next year, 2022, Bukele appointed her as the private secretary of Presidency, this charge was the highest relevance to the past governments because their private secretaries of the former presidents like Alfredo Cristiani, Antonio Saca and Mauricio Funes illegally administered millions of dollars from a secret fund that was filled from public money. A lot of former officials linked to the issue of the checks has been arrested or they are fugitives of the justice accused of money laundering.
Bukele is not satisfied to have the person who has been the administrator of the funds under his responsibility just in those public charge, on top of that he also achieved that his political party Nuevas Ideas appointed Claudia Juana Rodríguez as their financial secretary when the organization was asked to the Supreme court of justice their inscription as political party in Julio 2018.
Rodríguez is also the coordinator of the board of directors of the special fund of resources coming from the privatization of ANTEL (Fantel) and director of the road conservation fund (fovial). In these two functions, plus the presidency of the DOM, Rodríguez has been the president’s right-hand woman to handle more than $500 million.
Wherever there are public funds in the executive branch or Bukele’s money there is Claudia Juana Rodríguez.
GatoEncerrado has been looking for Rodríguez since December 1 through the comunication’s secretary of the presidency, Sofia Medina, to ask Rodríguez to explain the destination of the $1.2 million in checks issued to her name and their legal justification. At the closing of this note, on Tuesday, December 5, there has been no response from her.
