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🇵🇾 Paraguay /Crime & Justice

Colombia urges calm after court suspends passport-production agreements

From ABC Color · () Spanish

Translated from Spanish and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

Newswire From a news agency In the courts
  • A Colombian administrative court temporarily suspended agreements between the government and Portugal’s national mint over passport production.
  • President Abelardo de la Espriella said passport issuance would continue, while officials said existing inventories could meet requests as alternatives were considered.
  • The court cited doubts about the agreements’ execution, missed schedules and insufficient documentation, and ordered a 20-day report on production activities, passport locations and security arrangements.

Colombia’s president moved to reassure the public after a court temporarily halted agreements designed to shift passport production from a private contractor to the state.

“Colombians can be calm: passport issuance is guaranteed,” Abelardo de la Espriella wrote on X after the Administrative Court of Cundinamarca issued its decision. The ruling does not stop passports from being issued. It temporarily blocks agreements that allow Colombia’s National Printing Office to work with Portugal’s national mint on manufacturing the documents.

The court said it had identified doubts about how the agreements were being carried out, missed deadlines and a lack of adequate supporting documents for essential parts of the project. The decision came in response to a public-interest lawsuit against the Foreign Ministry, its revolving fund and the National Printing Office.

The court gave the authorities 20 working days to submit a report covering activities completed under the agreement, the location of the passports, security conditions at the sites where they are held and the identities of everyone involved in the production chain.

The dispute dates back to 2023, when Gustavo Petro’s government decided not to award Thomas Greg & Sons a new contract after the company had handled passport production for years. In 2024, Foreign Ministry Secretary-General José Antonio Salazar awarded the company a contract worth about 599 billion pesos, or roughly $150 million. Petro rejected the decision and called the process corrupt. The controversy led the inspector general’s office to suspend then-Foreign Minister Álvaro Leyva for three months over alleged abuse of office during the tender.

Petro’s government later sought to end the state’s reliance on Thomas Greg & Sons by creating a state-run model and signing agreements with Colombia’s National Printing Office and Portugal’s national mint. Foreign Minister Omar Bula and Interior Minister Rodrigo Lara, who also heads the printing office, said inventories were sufficient to continue meeting applications while the government considered alternatives.

Colombians can be calm: passport issuance is guaranteed.

· Abelardo de la EspriellaThe Colombian president reassured the public after the court suspended the production agreements.
About this summary

Originally published by ABC Color in Spanish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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