Lawmakers seek to ban former Caja President Eduardo Doryan from holding public office

Lawmakers from a Legislative Assembly commission investigating the financial crisis at Costa Rica’s Social Security System, or Caja, recommended the dismissal of three officials, the prohibition of holding public office for others and sending their cases to the Prosecutor’s Office.

Commission members will send the file of their investigation of former Caja President Eduardo Doryan to the Chief Prosecutor’s Office and recommended not to appoint Doryan to any public post for six years.

They also asked for the resignation of Caja CFO Iván Guardia, Actuarial Director Luis Guillermo López, and Pension General Manager José Luis Quesada. Lawmakers also suggested the officials should be disqualified from holding public office for six years and have their cases sent to Chief Prosecutor’s Office.

The same recommendation was made for former board members Édgar Cabezas, Jorge Chaves and Eugenio Trejos.

The report also advises the Caja to freeze job hiring for at least 36 months.

Walter Céspedes, a lawmaker from the Social Christian Unity Party, asked for a “total restructuring of the board of directors, as well as the elimination of all of the Caja’s regional administrative offices.”

Caja Executive President Ileana Balmaceda said the board restructuring “is viable as long as all of the sectors involved agree,” adding that she’s ready to take “all appropriate actions.”

Last year, the Pan American Health Organization released a study showing the Caja was in deep financial trouble, and according to internal audits, the institution ended 2011 with a deficit of $184 million.