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Students affiliated with the National Student Organization or ONE in Paraguay set a 48-hour deadline Thursday for the education minister, Marta Lafuente, to resign, following her involvement in a series of corruption scandals in the past few months.
ONE President Noel Segovia said that students will discuss today the measures they will apply if the minister refuses to resign, including taking over education facilities without attending classes, reported ABC Color. ONE is present in 32 high schools in nine departments of the country, most of them located in the capital, Asuncion.
The hashtag #LaPacienciaSeAcabo began trending on Twitter as students declared they have lost patience with the number of cases of mismanagement the minister was accused of.
Student leaders said the "the last straw" came when an entire wall collapsed at Nuestra Señora de Asuncion high school Wednesday. Fortunately, there were no victims reported.
Earlier in April, the country's congresspeople approved opening a formal investigation into the minister for allegedly buying overpriced water bottles for the ministry's cafeteria.
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The minister justified her actions saying she had to hire catering services for foreign visitors coming from the Program for International Student Assessment. The controversy grew to such an extent that President Horacio Cartes eventually ordered Lafuente to stop hiring the catering service.
However, as Lafuente replied to the students that she had no intention of resigning, President Cartes said he fully supported her Tuesday, telling journalists, “I invited you all for two coffees at the Sheraton, and two waters, and we will see how much the coffees and water costs.”
Cartes has himself been involved in various money laundering scandals and had been investigated by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency before taking office.
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