The Government has taken another step in the process of revoking grace pensions granted after the 2019 outbreak by sending two new decrees to the Comptroller General of the Republic.
These latest actions comply with the announced measure of the Minister of the Interior, Carolina Tohá, who at the beginning of February announced a total of 27 revocations, despite the fact that just a few days ago the undersecretary of the portfolio, Manuel Monsalve, had stated that there were 25 total.
Given the discrepancy in the reported figures, Undersecretary Monsalve had emphasized that President Gabriel Boric never mentioned revoking 27 pensions, but that the press had speculated about that amount. According to him, official information established that 25 grace pensions were revoked.
“The President has never spoken of 27. The press has spoken of 27 or a certain number has been counted. The information that I have is that the President has revoked 25 grace pensions,” Monsalve stressed on February 20.
Today, the decrees submitted to the controlling body total 27, and the Minister of Justice, Luis Cordero, indicated that “I can report on those that are being processed. The rest is a matter that will be addressed by the Ministry of the Interior.”
Regarding whether the Government will continue to revoke, Minister Cordero revealed that “in the case of grace pensions, the Executive announced two things, which was the immediate review of this number and then a review based on samples in relation to other pensions of grace that have been taken in the past.”
On February 5, Minister Tohá announced the conclusion of the review of cases of grace pensions granted in the context of the social outbreak, reporting that 27 benefits will be revoked due to criminal records of the beneficiaries.
On January 28, the Government had indicated that 25 pensions would be invalidated, and others would be subject to review. The evaluation process, according to Minister Tohá, has come to an end.
It is worth mentioning that, of the 27 benefits revoked, 21 correspond to pensions assigned during the government of President Boric, while six were granted during the administration of former President Piñera.
La Moneda managed an internal registry that identified 418 people who received pensions between January 14 and December 2, 2022, of which 69 had criminal records. According to a report from the Comptroller’s Office, 58 of these beneficiaries had convictions for crimes that included fraud, drug trafficking and micro-trafficking, production of child pornographic material, sexual abuse, robbery with violence, homicide, injuries in the context of domestic violence, among others.