The Governing Council of the Junta de Andalucía, chaired by Juan Manuel Moreno (PP), learned of at least four emergency health contracts awarded by hand for 31 million between 2021 and 2022, when the emergency declaration that justified the awards had already expired. direct and without public attendance. The Andalusian Government Council became aware of these four million-dollar contracts for different healthcare purchases after they were raised by the former Minister of Health and Families and today President of Parliament, Jesús Aguirre. The documentation is included in the second extension of the complaint that the PSOE presented last week to the Court of Instruction 13 of Seville, which is investigating the case and has charged the managing director of the Andalusian Health Service, Valle García, with prevarication. his two predecessors in office.
The socialists have raised the bar to request that, in addition to the three leaders of the Board, Judge Javier Santamaría also charges the seven provincial officials of the SAS spending centers with embezzlement, falsification of public documents and criminal organization. García was responsible for purchasing at the Reina Sofía University Hospital during those years, before being named manager of the SAS a year ago, which is why the PSOE is asking for an extension of her accusation, already agreed upon by the judge. The General Intervention saw “irregularities” through its unfavorable reports, while the total minor contracting amounted to 1,223 million.
“The highest levels of the Andalusian Government would necessarily have had full knowledge and would have consented to the described corrupt contracting in the emergency area of the SAS (…) The Government Council itself necessarily had to warn that a clamorous chain of illegal hiring within the SAS (…) knowing the irregularities and serious illegalities produced in the hiring of the SAS, did not act, but rather consented or tolerated, and did not stop the practice that is today revealed as patently violating the criminal order,” reads the extension of the complaint filed. , so the four contracts that total 31.5 million will add new files once all the required documentation reaches the court.
The socialists emphasize how the Government Council knew that since June 18, 2021, the Covid-19 alert justified emergency contracting, despite the fact that it did not object to the contracts raised by the Ministry of Health and Families those years. “Everything occurred under alleged but full knowledge and acquiescence or tolerance of the Government Council,” the letter highlights. That day in June 2021, the general director of contracting of the Ministry of Finance and European Financing informed all the management and expenditure centers of the Board that the emergency procedure had declined and could no longer be contracted under the Covid cause as a mode. of exception, and which, therefore, should already be governed by the Public Sector Contracts Law. Something that didn’t happen.
The PSOE defends that there has been a “widespread malicious abuse of emergency contracting”, given that the Board ignored said notice and continued hiring by hand and without competition, a reproach that the General Intervention has already made in numerous reports. Therefore, an embezzlement occurred because it is proven that prices were lower when several companies bid for a public contract, instead of direct awards to certain companies, which increased the cost for the public Administration, according to the socialists.
The first of the four contracts was for 9.2 million in November 2021 for the external management of infectious waste during the pandemic, hospital health care in Huelva-Costa, logistical distribution of vaccines, screening and the transportation of young people from Valencia to Andalusia due to an outbreak registered in Mallorca. The second contract, for 7.3 million and signed in February 2022, was intended for renovation works at the Virgen del Rocío Hospital and the supply of equipment for the Cartuja Macarena Hospital.
The third was for 8.8 million in February 2022 for the supply of antigen tests to detect Covid-19 in SAS health centers. In this regard, the complaint clarifies: “The object of the contract, far from the Covid cause, was supplies of antigen tests when at that point these purchases were perfectly foreseeable and articulated with procedures under advertising and competition.” The fourth contract, for 6.2 million, was for works in health centers in Granada to fight the pandemic, signed in May 2022. The socialists predict that these examples elevated to the leadership of the Board, obtained by open sources of Its official website is “a very small sample of what must have really happened.”
To justify the extension of the accusation of the current manager of the SAS, the PSOE provides an emergency resolution signed by Valle García as managing director of the Reina Sofía University Hospital in Córdoba to award an information and access control service to the building complex. The contracting of the service, included in the Córdoba health logistics platform, is only for a period of one month and had a budget of 60,119 euros, awarded to the company Servicios Securitas SA.
The PSOE highlights that the investigation underway must delve into the thousands of documents that the court will soon receive without “for the moment” it should go beyond [la imputación] “at higher levels”, beyond the managing directors of the SAS. That is, to the Minister of Health or members of the Government Council. “The absolute need to investigate a policy of continued administrative corruption, resulting in the illicit application of public funds amounting to hundreds of millions of euros, could not take place—and be consolidated over time and in the territory—solely for reason and under the exclusive design and knowledge of the managing directors of the SAS,” reads this second extension of the complaint filed.
