The Andalusian PSOE wants to take the Moreno Government to the Congressional investigation commission

The PSOE of Andalusia wants the socialist parliamentary group in Congress to request the appearance of several members of the Andalusian Government chaired by Juan Manuel Moreno (PP) in the investigation commission into the procurement of health supplies during the pandemic. This was confirmed this Wednesday by the parliamentary spokesperson for the Socialists, Ángeles Férriz, although it has not yet been decided which specific people would be summoned.

The Andalusian socialists will use this means for the Moreno Executive to account for the emergency health contracts signed under the decree law of March 16, 2020 to acquire thousands of goods, services and supplies “to fight the effects of the coronavirus.” through exceptional procedures that streamlined procedures but at the cost of fewer controls. Express contracting ended in May 2021, but in the case of Andalusia this method continued to be used until March 2022, ignoring an instruction from June 2021 from the Ministry of Finance, then directed by the current deputy secretary of Economy of the PP, Juan Bravo, in which he highlighted the “exceptional and residual nature” of the measure.

Next week the plenary session of the Andalusian Parliament will debate a PSOE initiative in which it calls for the creation of a commission of inquiry into emergency contracts from 2020 to the present to verify their effect on waiting lists, the materials that were acquired and if “there has been impairment of public funds.” Barring a major surprise, the proposal will be rejected by the PP, which has an absolute majority in the autonomous Chamber. In parallel, the PSOE led by Juan Espadas has commissioned a criminal law firm in Seville to present a complaint to the courts about these contracts.

The parliamentary spokesperson for the Andalusian socialists, Ángeles Férriz, also alluded this Wednesday to the signing by the insurance company Asisa of the former Vice-Minister of Health of the Board until three months ago, Miguel Ángel Guzmán, as medical director in Andalusia. “The Andalusian Government seems more like a gang than anything else. This is a pattern of behavior, a macro-cause of Mr. Moreno,” Férriz said. “What do they have to cover more? “This is the tip of the iceberg of a Government concocting a system to benefit its friends.”

Contracts worth 5.2 million

While the political commotion grows around the signing of the former number two of Health for Asisa, he appears calm and surprised by the controversy, according to sources close to him. Guzmán, they specify, trusts that the report being prepared by the Ministry of Justice, Local Administration and Public Function rules out any incompatibility in his hiring by the private insurer and settles the controversy. This morning, the counselor, Antonio Nieto, announced that, “given the repercussion” that this situation is having, an “informative action has been opened to analyze what effects the law of incompatibility of senior officials of the Andalusian Administration has in this case. ”.

Nieto has pointed out that the objective of the rule is that “no person takes advantage of their membership in a Government of the Junta to have an advantage”, but that it does not intend for this “to be a punishment that prevents them from carrying out a professional task, because that would imply that “Whoever was part of the Government would be practically disqualified from any other action in the future.” To this informative action could be added the investigation of the Andalusian Office against Fraud and Corruption, after the presentation also today of a complaint by Adelante Andalucía to investigate whether Guzmán's move to the private sector violates the law of incompatibilities.

The Andalusian training offers in its writing a list of tenders and contracts by the SAS (Andalusian Health Service), of which Guzmán was manager between 2019 and 2022, to hospitals belonging to the HLA hospital group, in which Asisa decided to group all its centers in 2016. Adelante includes the tender and award in 2015 to the Santa Isabel Clinic of two lots for a total amount of 5,227,003.87 euros, within a contract for the provision of health care that continued to be extended until February 14, 2023 “a despite the fact that the deadline was April 30, 2019″, they indicate in their writing. In the complaint, the party also lists the emergency awards to refer patients to private healthcare between January 2021 and June 2023 signed by Guzmán, for a total of 242.7 million, of which 43.67 million were distributed among 11 centers of the HLA Asisa Group.

The former vice-counselor's entourage insists that the Board “never, neither with the PSOE nor with the PP, has directly signed a contract with Asisa or with any other insurer”, and that “there has never been a direct link with that company nor has it been Will have”. The interlocutors also separate the insurance company from the hospitals that he manages through the HLA Group: “He is not going to work in the HLA group, but in the insurance company. They are not the same workers,” they give as an example. Guzmán has also not considered resigning from his new job, which he will join next Monday, according to these sources.

The signing of the former vice-minister of Health by an insurance company, revealed last Monday by the SER, is joined by other complaints from the socialists about public positions in the Moreno Government that have supposedly incurred incompatibility, such as the general director of Fisheries and Aquaculture, José Manuel Martínez Malia. On March 27, the Official Gazette of the Junta de Andalucía published a resolution “ordering the publication of the declaration of non-compliance” by Martínez Malia with the law on Incompatibilities for senior officials in Andalusia. This general director granted public aid to two fishing companies owned by his brothers and in which he was a partner, according to the Andalusian Anti-Fraud Office. The socialists also raise suspicions about the increase in sponsorship contracts of the Ministry of Tourism, which went from 16.8 million euros to 64.3 million in one year.