On Wednesday, The Archipielago Press put a number on the table that no press release can sweep away: Infotep — the National Institute of Technical Professional Training of San Andrés and Providencia, now a university — has a contractual opacity index of 72 percent, ranked «very high», according to the Cuestor observatory.
This is not bar gossip. Cuestor measured 748 contracts signed for about 45 billion pesos, using all 16 risk signals it applies nationwide. Result: Infotep ranks 7th among 2,183 ranked entities nationally and first among 177 peers in its group (national mid-sized). Among similar institutions, none show more opacity signals than Infotep.
Before anyone shouts «slander», say what Cuestor itself says — and what this editorial respects to the letter: the index does not claim an entity is corrupt. It measures where it stands against peers on signals the literature associates with risk, using open SECOP II data. Opacity is not a conviction. But 72 percent is not an office detail either.
The signals that hurt most
Three figures from Cuestor itself explain why the index spikes:
- 57% of competitive processes ended with a single bidder (97th percentile among peers).
- 42% of those competitive processes used direct invitation to suppliers (98th percentile).
- 55% of contracts were awarded by direct contracting.
Island translation: a lot of public money moves with little real competition. When a «competitive» process arrives with one bidder or a closed invitation, the market stops being a market. And when more than half goes direct, the question is no longer technical — it is civic: who decides, by what criteria, and to whom do they answer?
Nuances matter too. Cuestor notes Infotep does better than peers on extensions (3%) and shows no clustering of split contracts. In March 2024 there was a break: direct contracting fell sharply. That counts. It does not erase the average: the index remains «very high» and first place in the peer group is not sustained by one improvement.
This is not just any agency
Infotep is not a distant Bogotá fund. It is the school that trains technicians, professionals and now university students on the island — the door for many Raizal and resident youth to a trade, a wage, a reason to stay. If that door is run with opacity, the cost is not only accounting: it is social.
The Archipielago Press also frames a political controversy over recent management of the institution. That political fight exists and the island debates it. This editorial does not settle who is right in that quarrel. It stays with what is verifiable: Cuestor's ranking, SECOP figures, and the duty to account when public money is spent.
Nor do we start from zero. Years ago the same weekly documented Comptroller General findings on Infotep contracts with a contractor who, in one period, received seven contracts for more than 154 million pesos, with criminal and disciplinary referrals. That is published fiscal-control history, not rumour. Today's point is different: the structural opacity the index measures in the current contracting universe.
What Infotep should publish now
If the rectorate and board want that 72% down, they do not need a speech. They need facts any islander can check:
- Publish a live 2024–2026 contracting dashboard: modality, value, bidders, awardee and justification for every direct award.
- Explain why 57% of competitive processes ended with one bidder and what will open the market.
- Name supervisors for the 60% of contracts Cuestor shows without a published supervisor: name, institutional ID and acceptance record.
- Give the Comptroller, Procuraduría and the academic community an improvement plan with deadlines, not adjectives.
San Andrés does not ask Infotep to be a saint. It asks it to be readable. A university that trains the island cannot teach public ethics in the classroom and practise opacity in SECOP. 72% is not a conviction: it is an alarm. And on these islands, alarms are silenced with documents, not with silence.
Armando Archbold, periodista del Externado con maestría en política, editor de WiNyuuz
