The president announced the decision on Sunday night, after the report, according to which Lopez ordered officials around him to deposit 98,400 soles (approximately 24,600 dollars) in the account of his ex-partner, Dervy Apaza, in amounts less than 10,000. soles, an amount that alerted the financial control systems.

“Given the facts spread by a media outlet that would involve the current Minister of Health, and in order to demonstrate absolute transparency in my Government, I have decided to dismiss him,” the president reported on Twitter.

According to the report, the deposits began on August 31, and today the former minister declared that he commissioned high-ranking officials from his environment to help him with the deposit, without knowing that it would be done in installments and entrusted to lower-level personnel.

The journalistic report stated that, on September 23, Dervy Apaza received 70,000 dollars from the Ministry of Health official Luis Quito and the following day he purchased an apartment and completed the balance with part of the deposit in soles.

According to the dismissed Lopez, the 70,000 dollars deposited by Quito are the payment to the woman for the sale of a tomograph, while she claimed that the amount in soles corresponds to the cancellation of an outstanding debt of her partner.

Meanwhile, Catholic Cardinal Pedro Barreto asked Castillo to resign and the dismissal of the Congress of the Republic to call new general election, in the face of cases of corruption, a practice that is extending, he said, to the opposition Parliament and society in general.

ef/aph/mgt/mrs