The Government of Navarra has announced on Monday four reports prepared by the Office of Good Practices and Anti -Corruption of Navarra (Oana), in which, at the request of the Executive himself, he analyzes up to four awards of public works to serve and actua, companies investigated in the UCO report
The most relevant report is the one that studies the following for the hiring of the duplication work of the Belate tunnels. With one of the most important public works awards in recent years in Navarra, it was granted for 62.88 million euros to the UTE formed by OSÉS Construcciones, act and serve. The works have already begun and, now, the OANA determines in its analysis that irregularities have been committed during the processing of the file.
Specifically, the OANA considers that the contracting table committed an “essential” infraction of the rules because, citing the file, “in the assessment of the qualitative criteria, four members of the contracting table sent their scores to the President, and this determined theirs having knowledge of those assigned by others.” That is, he determined his score knowing what the rest was going to vote. Not only that, but not even a meeting was held to exchange the scores. These were sent by mail.
According to the text, there are six minutes of meetings that were made “after the exchange of emails between the members of the table, although it does not appear to be called to the effect or approve any norm that established a period for the exchange of emails or how the deliberations and the adoption of agreements would be”. This fact motivated the particular vote of the Secretary of the Mesa, which several times requested the president to convene a meeting to ensure that all the members of the table scored companies without knowing the scores of the rest. All this, the Oana points out, “supposes the nullity of full right of the agreements of the contracting table and, therefore, of the award proposal.”
Of course, the Oana recognizes that they cannot “determine if there has been a conflict of interest that has led the president of the hiring table to act as it did.” That, he concludes, “it is something that the Investigation Commission constituted in Parliament and who is directed by this report, will have to try to delimit.” The reports have already been sent to said commission. This analysis starts from the conclusions of the Navarra General Accounts Report of 2023, prepared by the Compotos Chamber, which also concluded that some irregularities had occurred, but not illegal. In addition to the allocation of scores, the entity stressed that the maximum period of 80 days had been exceeded to award the work and that the qualitative award criteria “should have been more developed.”
This Monday, the Minister of Territorial Cohesion, Óscar Chivite, has appeared before the means to express that he does not share the conclusions of the OANA and underline that the works will continue: “We respect the work of the Oana, but we do not share the conclusions about the nullity it contributes in its research report of the Duplication Works Contract of the Bellate tunnel”. In line with the statement recurring by President Navarra María Chivite, the counselor has affirmed that the “award of Belate was resolved legally and transparently.” In any case, he has recognized that he has instructed the General Technical Secretariat of his department to legally analyze the conclusions and consequences of the report.
“Administrative irregularities are not illegalities and much less corruption,” he added, and then said that in said report “there are no other type of responsibilities, no patrimonial damage or conflict of interest is accredited.” Chivite has defended that “the fact that there was no final meeting of the contracting table does not alter the result of the award because there was a pleasure contrast of opinions via telematics and, in fact, they were collected in the minutes.” Although he has affirmed that “the president of the table had prefixed his scores before receiving the remaining ones,” he has failed to realize journalists in which emails or on what documentation is based to affirm it. “I rely on the information we have collected once the tender is over,” he said.
On the criteria of the Oana, Chivite has expressed that “one thing is that we are interested in his opinion and another thing is to abide by it without discussion.” “We respect it, we evaluate it, we value it, we will study it, we will study the consequences it has. In parallel, the external audits and the Research Commission within the Parliament of Navarra are still open. We will wait to have the final assessment of all the processes that are open,” he said.
