The president of the Junta de Andalucía, Juan Manuel Moreno, has defended on Tuesday the procedure for hiring the Andalusian Health Service (SAS) investigating a court of Cádiz for an alleged crime of embezzlement, within the framework of a cause in which the Andalusian government has just appeared as a injured party.
Judge Rosa García, who instructs the case, has claimed documentation to the SAS to determine if there was embezzlement in the granting of 235 million euros in hundreds of minor contracts chopped in the province of Cádiz, in exercise 2021. Among the documentation sent to the magistrate are the unfavorable definitive reports of the SAS interventors in Cádiz, where they censor the “mass fractionation” Millionaires with the same company and for the same object, to “avoid” the legislation.
The auditors denounced an “abuse” of the figure of the minor contract in the SAS, which was repeated in all Andalusian provinces, and that motivated the opening of an internal investigation ordered by the general intervention of the Board. The minor contract is a figure that includes the law for services, goods and benefits in situations of urgent need, but the auditors attests that the SAS chained hundreds of minor contracts with the same company to pay the same service, which “violates” the Law of Public Sector Contracts.
Moreno has appeared before the media in the Palace of San Telmo with the president of the Xunta de Galicia, Alfonso Rueda, to present a collaboration agreement between both governments in educational matters. This time the leader carried a “file” with data that had passed him since the direction of the SAS, aware that they were going to ask if his government had appeared in the cause of the fractional contracts as an injured party because he had “indications of impairment of funds”.
The Andalusian president has eluded the question and read the notes that had happened to him, defending the use of the minor contract, but without mentioning the “abuse” of this figure repeatedly that caused a “massive and improper fractionation of millionaire contracts” to “avoid the law”, as censored by their interveners. “The minor hiring in the provincial centrals of the SAS dates back to time immemorial, that is what are happening to me. I am seeing here a file,” he said, pointing to a role on the lectern, “and I am seeing what year the contracts come and they are decades, therefore it is not a new practice that has put this government. And it is also a completely legal formula and with all the legal support. And I am convinced that everything will be in a file, ”he said.
After two failed attempts to access the judicial instruction, braking by the judge and the Prosecutor’s Office for not clarifying in quality what the Board was asked, the SAS lawyers finally submitted a letter admitting for the first time irregularities in the fractionation of contracts that could lead to a impairment of public funds.
Moreno have been asking this matter since the judge opened proceedings, a month ago, as a result of a complaint of Podemos, but it is the first time that he has to answer about a judicial case in which her government is personed, and declares herself “harmed” of the alleged impairment that is investigated.
“Obviously I am not on top of these issues, the Junta de Andalucía is very large, and each department has its own legal services. The legal services of the SAS have endorsed the hiring from the first minute to ensure that the health system works correctly. We have the peace of mind that all the hiring has the support of the legal services of the SAS, and therefore, it has always acted according to the law.
The popular leader has underlined his “confidence in the performance of the technicians.” “We are convinced that in the end it will be proven that it has been legally acted. The Court of Jaén already filed [una denuncia de Podemos] And another from Seville has already rejected the extension of the complaint, when the PSOE wanted to make a general cause with this matter, ”said Moreno, although the latter case refers to an investigation against the Andalusian government, driven by a socialist complaint, by an assumption of prevarication in emergency contracts with private clinics between 2020 and 2024, protecting in the legal framework enabled during the pandemic when it was already repealed.
Intervention alerts
The intervention of the SAS alerted, both the Minister of Health and to the head of the Treasury, of an “irregular” procedure consisting of the “chopping” of a millionaire contract with the same company to overcome the maximum thresholds established by the law for the minor contract (15,000 euros for ordinary contracts and up to 30,000 for toilets).
Between January and December 2021, the provincial centers of the SAS in the eight provinces signed contracts for works, services and purchase of goods and supplies with private companies for a total amount of 4,141.6 million euros. Almost a third – the 29.58% (1,225.3 million) – were minor contracts, the majority not exceeding 30,000 euros, although hundreds of them were awarded by finger to the same companies, reaching millionaire figures.
Article 29.8 of the Public Contract Law also establishes that “minor contracts may not last exceeding one year or be the subject of extension.” However, the intervention detected in seven Andalusian provinces numerous minor contracts that exceeded that period and were also extended “without justification” for months and even years.
The largest number of minor contracts – and the most bulky invoices – was absorbed by pharmaceuticals Novartis, Pfizer, Roche, Janssen, Sanofi Aventis, Bayer Hispania, and, to a lesser extent Grifols Movaco, Skyler, Ken Pharma, Diaverum …
But the subdivision of contracts in the SAS is not limited to the purchase of medicines, signatures from other areas, such as Ferrovial, the UTE number One Law, Restoration and Catering Hermanos González, Canon Spain, Stryker Iberia, Life Sopio, Unuba Tent or Pardo Hydraulic Industries also appear.
Minor hiring was also systematically used for rehabilitation works in hospitals and health centers, for transfer of doctors and patients, for stationery, catering service, private security companies, taxis …
The reports of the intervention do confirm one of the arguments given by the Andalusian President on Tuesday: SAS has been receiving notices from auditors on irregularities in the abuse of the minor contract, a common practice that dates back to the years of socialist governments.
From the Ministry of Health, they refuted the conclusions of the reports of the intervention on the abuse of minor contracts claiming that they are “provisions that have had greater or lesser impact depending on the year and the circumstances surveyed”, and that these repairs of the inspection body date back to 2012 Administrative for different procedures ”to minor contracts, they add.
The “difficulties” to solve these “deficiencies”, which the intervention directly catalogs as “legal infractions”, are “in the vast majority of cases for reasons outside the will of the administration and always for the public interest of the benefit”, argue sources of the SAS
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