One of the first emergency contracts of the Government of Carlos Mazón after the catastrophic DANA has gone to the company in which his chief of staff and regional secretary of Communication, José Manuel Cuenca, worked for five years. Councilor Nuria Montes, known for her inappropriate statements about the relatives of the DANA fatalities, has signed the order to the company STV Gestión SL for one of the four lots of the emergency contract for the road cleaning service and entrances to industrial estates affected by the disaster of October 29. The amount of the lot is 290,000 euros.
José Manuel Cuenca was responsible for the Communication and Institutional Relations department of STV Gestión SL between November 2017 and January 2023, when he joined as an advisor to the popular parliamentary group in the Corts Valencianes and then as a senior official in the Mazón Executive, as indicated his official resume of the regional transparency portal GVA Oberta.
Cuenca is one of the closest people to President Mazón in the Presidency ‘politburo’. The regional secretary and chief of staff of the head of the Consell has not been separated from Carlos Mazón since the day after the catastrophic DANA. In the key hours of October 29, as published The ObjectiveCuenca was outside the Palau de la Generalitat to attend to a “particular” matter in Xàtiva, located 60 kilometers from the Valencian capital.
The company STV Gestión SL, with numerous public contracts in Murcia and, to a lesser extent, the Provincial Council of Alicante, has assets of 76 million euros, according to its latest annual accounts, corresponding to the financial year 2023, deposited with the Registry. Trade.
The former head of communication and institutional relations of the company, currently serves as Mazón’s right-hand man at the Palau de la Generalitat. Throughout the DANA crisis, Cuenca has not separated from his boss, like other senior Presidency officials who make up the hard core of the Valencian Executive, such as Santiago Lumbreras (Mazón’s former chief of staff in the Alicante Provincial Council) or Cayetano García Ramírez.
Carlos Mazón’s entire communication strategy depends on José Manuel Cuenca. The president’s chief of staff was professionally linked to the Cope network until 2017, the year in which he went to work at STV Gestión SL. After a brief period as an advisor to the popular parliamentary group, between February and July 2023, after the last regional elections, Cuenca landed in the Palau de la Generalitat. The senior official maintains a friendly relationship with Carlos Mazón to the point that they both share a house in Valencia.
The “essential and urgent” cleaning of polygons
The emergency contract, through an award negotiated without publicity, justifies the tender due to the cessation of activity in the industrial estates of the Horta Sud region after the passage of the DANA, “so it is essential and urgent “cleaning and releasing obstacles that prevent access to companies and industrial warehouses.”
The award was carried out by the Valencian Institute of Competitiveness and Innovation (Ivace), chaired by Councilor Nuria Montes. The head of the regional Industry portfolio states in the documentation consulted by elDiario.es that the work must be carried out by companies “capable of performing the services optimally and with the greatest speed and efficiency.” Thus, among the companies that “have given their consent in the provision of services” is, for the second batch, STV Gestión SL.
“Every day of delay in access to industrial facilities represents considerable economic losses,” indicates the resolution that declares and processes the contract as an emergency, signed by Montes. STV Gestión SL has obtained the second lot, related to the cleaning of the roads and accesses of the industrial estates of Albal, Beniparrell, Catarroja and Massanassa.
The resolution signed by Nuria Montes warns that the distribution of the polygons assigned to each lot “may be modified in accordance with the indications and instructions” of Ivace “in order to expedite the completion of the tasks as soon as possible.”
Although an execution period of one month is estimated, Councilor Montes also indicates that the total time “will vary depending on the extension and the existing situation in each polygon”, a period “impossible to determine exactly.”
It is the only company awarded this contract, which has a total value of 1.1 million that is not domiciled in the province of Valencia. The fourth lot has been awarded, also for 290,400 euros, to Pavasal (a construction company that, according to the ruling of the ‘Taula case’ on box B of the PP of Valencia, contributed a total of 240,000 euros to the electoral campaign of the Popular Party in the municipal elections of 2007).
The first lot has been awarded to GD Energy Services SAU (based in Paterna) and the third to Magma Gestións SLU, a demolition company from Massalfassar.
Industry defends that Cuenca “has had nothing to do with it”
Presidency of the Generalitat Valenciana has not answered the questions from this newspaper.
The Department of Industry, for its part, assures that Mazón’s chief of staff “has had nothing to do” with the award.
Sources from the department headed by Nuria Montes affirm that Ivace asked companies with “immediate availability” of trucks and emphasize that technical assistance has also been awarded for the supervision of the execution of the polygon cleaning service (for a total value of 76,230 euros). The engineering company MS Ingenieros SLU will be in charge of auditing the work of STV Gestión.
#Mazón #handily #awards #emergency #contracts #firm #chief #staff #worked
