The Community Prosecutor’s Office is trying to clarify a contract for half a million units processed with a Chinese company during the first wave of the pandemic. Ingesa paid almost 16.7 euros for each disposable protector when the Madrid PP Group assures that they were offered at 0.28 and 0.33 cents
Half a million disposable hospital gowns valued a priori at one million euros, but 11 ended up being paid for with no apparent justification. A new suspicious contract processed during the first wave of the pandemic, in March 2020, comes back to the fore.
The European Public Prosecutor’s Office has opened an investigation to find out why there was an extra cost of ten million in the adjudication of the Ministry of Health under the Salvador Illa stage, and if these facts constitute crimes of prevarication and embezzlement of community funds, since all of the contract was paid with an item from the EU.
In a decree advanced by ‘ABC’, the Spanish delegation of the European Prosecutor’s Office has claimed jurisdiction over these proceedings after the Spanish Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, under the baton of Luis Pastor, took over these investigations after a complaint from the Popular Group of the Assembly Madrid on April 22.
It is about the purchase of 500,000 disposable gowns from the Weihai Textile Group for a price that would be “significantly higher” than the market price by the Directorate of the National Institute of Health Management (Ingesa), of the Ministry of Health. It was signed on March 27, 2020 from a proforma receipt issued by the company two days before. Each unit was paid in advance at 16.7 euros and in exchange 100,000 gowns would be delivered per week from the following April 2.
The European Public Prosecutor’s Office, which last July received all the documentation that Anti-Corruption had, echoes the facts that the popular people from Madrid denounced in relation to the price: that at that time there were two other companies supplying disposable gowns such as those acquired by Health which, instead of almost 17 euros per unit, cost between 0.28 and 0.33 euro cents each.
Referrals and commissions
The decree also draws attention to other details of that award. It points out that a proforma receipt issued by the Chinese company to Ingesa stated its complete identification and its registered office, but nothing appears on the contract signature other than the company’s name. “Any circumstance about the company, including its address, was omitted, reflecting only that it would be located in Spain,” states the European Public Prosecutor’s Office.
«This is stated in the publication in the BOE of April 28, 2020 of the announcement of formalization of the contract. However, examining the digital file sent, it is clear that the Administration knew all the identifying data of the company, “adds the decree. It emphasizes that “there is no reference to the corporate purpose of the company or its economic solvency or the ability to meet the obligations of the contract.”
It was a Chinese merchant and its address “was not published until the BOE of May 4”, through an error correction. By then, as the prosecutor develops, “not only had the contract been formalized, but the price had already been paid in full and, according to the invoice, it should have been fully executed.”
Regarding payment, the decree stops in the conditions that included the receipt issued by the company to Health and the justifying report of the contract, which adds an unjustified amount within the agreed amount of 11,034,969.49 euros.
Specifically, it reflects that the price offered by Weihai was 8,423,640.83 euros for the gowns and a VAT of 1,768,964.58 euros, plus a total of 842,364.08 euros for «fees, tariffs and other 10 %». “There is no justification, clarification or documentary support in the report on this last amount, not allowing, therefore, to determine what specific services were included in that payment,” says the decree on the alleged 10% commission.
#Europe #investigates #Health #paid #million #extra #cost #gowns