The Government of Carlos Mazón took more than 10 months to formalize a contract for an “advanced monitoring and decision-making aid system for the risks derived from floods” for the Valencian Agency for Security and Emergency Response, dependent on the Department of Justice and Interior directed by Salomé Pradas. The contract was formalized just three days before the day of the disaster caused by DANA in several Valencian regions, according to the documentation available on the Contracting Portal.
The Executive of the Pacte del Botànic began the procedure, after having approved the decree of the Valencian Emergency Unit (UVE), the project that Mazón knocked down just four months after landing at the Palau de la Generalitat. With the decree approving the UVE, it was “necessary to have” software tools for “predicting the behavior of meteorological and hydrological risks,” according to the contract specifications.
Elisa Núñez, the first Minister of Justice and Interior of the Government formed by Mazón with his Vox partners, continued the adjudication process, inherited by the current head of the regional portfolio on which the management of the Emergencies depends, Salomé Pradas. However, although the award took place on December 13, 2023, the contract was only formalized on October 26, three days before the catastrophic DANA.
The ‘software’ for predicting the behavior of meteorological and hydrological risks, as confirmed by several sources, was not operational during the first meeting of the Integrated Operational Coordination Center (Cecopi).
The file justifies that “it is necessary to have software tools for predicting the behavior of meteorological risks with special impact due to their characteristics on floods, all within the framework of the Special Plan Against Flood Risk, and the rest of planning tools and both in prevention and during the emergency and the post-emergency phase for use in the Emergency Coordination Center of the Generalitat.
Next Generation Funds
The contract, awarded to a joint venture formed by the companies Hydrometeorological Innovate Solutions SL and Aquatec Proyectos para el Sector del Agua SAU, had a budget of 68,464 euros to begin implementation in 2023 and a progressive increase until 2025, by Next Generation funds. The total amount of the contract was 811,687 euros, corresponding to the annuities between 2023 and 2025.
The contracting table analyzed the offers in November 2023 and, in December, the UTE was considered to meet the requirements, so they were awarded the contract. But it was not until July 1, 2024, seven months later, when the then Minister of Justice, Elisa Núñez, authorized the incorporation of budget remnants to the Valencian Agency for Security and Emergency Response.
A week later the autonomous government broke up and Mazón had to reorganize his troops. Salomé Pradas became the Minister of Justice and the Interior. Four months later, the regional secretary and director of the agency, Emilio Argüeso, appointed after that crisis, signed the contract for the service a few days before the tragedy.
Why did the Consell take 10 months to continue the procedure? The Department of Justice and Interior and the Emergency Department have not answered the questions from this newspaper, posed last Friday. The regional secretary who signs the contract affirms that he was updated on pending matters when he took office.
The breakdown of the Executive pact and its subsequent restructuring would explain part of that period. Vox left the Consell in July and Mazón restructured the department in one day; Far from carrying out a thorough remodeling, he made use of the troops he already had in the Executive and in the party.
The next step in contracting, already with the changes made by the PP in the Government, took place on October 15, when the Valencian Agency for Security and Emergency Response “arranged the expense derived from the contracting” of the ‘software’ . “The award is conditional on the effective existence of adequate and sufficient credit once the Generalitat budgets for 2025 and 2026 have been approved,” says the contract signed between the representative of the UTE and the regional secretary.
A ‘software’ born from the Valencian Emergency Unit
The technical specifications allude to the decree creating the Valencian Emergency Unit (UVE), the project created by the Government of Ximo Puig and eliminated by his successor, calling it an “occurrence” inherited from the Pacte del Botànic stage. The decree creating the UVE established the obligation to launch an analysis and evaluation unit in crises derived from meteorological phenomena, whose implementation and staffing was already “underway,” according to the technical specifications. of the software contract.
The specifications, signed by the deputy director general of Emergencies, Jorge Suárez, requested a tool “already fully operational at the date of presentation of the offers.” “The tool must have highly specialized characteristics for emergency management and risk analysis, with basic event management solutions not being acceptable,” the specifications add.
The award of the contract was also conditioned by the fact that the ‘software’ could work without a network connection, “with the limitations inherent to the lack of functionalities based on data exclusively accessible via the Internet.” The tool, according to the specifications, also had to be capable of “analyzing, recording and interpreting the maximum number of sources” and “issuing alerts based on its own algorithms or those endorsed by the scientific community” about, among others, the expected rain, the vulnerability of goods and people and the accumulation of water in urban environments.
Vox management in emergencies
Carlos Mazón left the management of the Emergencies to Vox, by virtue of the Government pact that he signed shortly after winning the elections. He appointed Elisa Núñez as Minister of Justice and the Interior, who left the party when Santiago Abascal ordered the breaking of the regional government pacts with the PP.
During the first summer in which she was at the head of the department, the councilor had positions appointed by the PSPV-PSOE in her duties until she found someone from the party to whom she would entrust the management. In charge of Emergencies he placed Ángel Javier Montero Hernández, a former senior PP official in the Generalitat with Alberto Fabra, former provincial deputy and lawyer in the Chiva City Council. Despite his clear connection with the PP, it was then said that the appointment had occurred at the proposal of Vox.
In July 2024, when Vox broke with the PP, Mazón restructured the Government in an express reform, just one day after the departure of the ultras. He placed Salomé Pradas, lawyer, former senator and until then Minister of the Environment, at the head of Justice and the Interior.
In the second step he appointed Emilio Argüeso, a former senator expelled from Ciudadanos and commissioner of the Local Police on leave, whom he appointed as regional secretary, and Alberto Javier Martín Moratilla, firefighter and emergency technician, as general director of Emergencies and Fire Extinction. These appointments occurred on July 12.
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