Minister of Housing Fernando Zumbado of Costa Rica

Minister of Housing Fernando Zumbado voluntarily took leave of his job (with pay) yesterday while the budgetary watchdog Comptroller Generals Office probes into his use of $1.

Before the daily newspaper La Nacion investigative journalists broke the story, Zumbado was being hailed as the administrations ambassador to the poor.

Zumbado is under scrutiny not only by the deputies in congress but also by the prosecutors office, the Comptroller General and the governments committee on ethics.

Zumbado had stepped aside from his duties in July as authorities investigated his handling of a $1.

Costa Rican bass player Fernando Zumbado has gathered together six of the Midwests hottest Latin musicians to form the Regional Latin band Escape.

higher education than at the elementary level, to the detriment of children.

Social Sector and Fight against Poverty director Fernando Zumbado described the return of these adolescents to the classroom as "the great pending task.

Zumbado has calculated that more than 40,000 families survive in a very poor situation.

The daily La Nacin reported Wednesday that in April 2007, Zumbado had recommended that that BCIE award a $315,000 consulting contract to the International Center for Sustainable Development (CIDH), a non-profit he founded and directed until April 2006, a month before assuming office.

Zumbado was joined at the briefing by the President of the Inter- American Development Bank, Enrique Iglesias, the former UNDP Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean and a founder of the Commission, Augusto Ramirez Ocampo, and the following members of the Commission: Misael Pastrana Borrero, former President of Colombia; Oswaldo Hurtado, former President of Ecuador; Antonio Cafiero, Vice-President of the Senate of Argentina; Jose Goldemberg, former Minister of Science and Technology of Brazil; and Domingo Santa Maria, President of the Development Bank of Chile.

Zumbado said the report detailed the need for economic and social development.