Colombia’s finance minister Ricardo Bonilla stepped down on Wednesday amid a widening corruption scandal that is threatening to derail the leftist government’s reform agenda. Bonilla, a long-term ally of leftist President Gustavo Petro, had become embroiled in a probe by the attorney-general’s office into the alleged misuse of funds from the country’s disaster risk agency.
Petro’s second interior minister, Luis Fernando Velasco, has testified before the supreme court as part of the probe. The probe into the disaster risk agency comes amid a parallel investigation into the Petro campaign’s finances ahead of the 2022 election that he has characterised as a “coup” attempt by elites.