The entry of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office into the investigation opened against the Andalusian government for a possible crime of prevarication in the abuse of emergency contracts – manually, without publicity or competitive bidding – up to three years later The Covid-19 pandemic has stressed the executive of Juan Manuel Moreno to the maximum.
The Andalusian PP did not expect that the PSOE would formalize the complaint that it had been announcing for almost a year, it did not expect that a judge would open the procedure and even less that the Ministry Public entrusts this matter to the Anti-Corruption, instead of the ordinary prosecution. All this happened last month, without the Moreno government yet knowing what the investigation is taking place on, who is investigating it, and therefore how to defend itself. The level of nervousness this Wednesday at the San Telmo Palace was palpable.
The Commission did not receive the complaint presented by the socialists before the Court of Instruction number 13 of Seville on June 20, because it reveals and documents alleged criminal acts – among them embezzlement of public funds and prevarication – which involve the Andalusian Administration.
To know the exact terms of the complaint, it would be necessary for the Moreno executive to retract, that is to say, to admit a certain seriousness and concern in the face of a legal case that it has so far undervalued, and present themselves as an injured party. This reluctance to take this step is similar to that of the previous socialist government, which also took a long time to appear in the ERE court case, while the PP, as a private prosecutor, controlled all information in the investigation as it unfolds.
The feeling of confusion that gripped those around the Andalusian president this Wednesday is very similar, especially because the judicial file is now more documented than a month ago and covers a longer period. Since Judge Francisco Javier Santamaría agreed to deal with the complaint of the PSOE of Juan Espadas and opened proceedings for the alleged offense of administrative prevarication, on October 3, the socialists have expanded the initial complaint and filed a complaint at the same time as ‘they appeared as a popular accusation. .
The expansion of the complaint against the Moreno government, which the anti-corruption prosecutor’s office will now investigate, already covers four years of an alleged “parallel system” of manual contracts with private health care: 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023.
A complaint and a complaint
The socialists have submitted to the courts what they have been denouncing for months in the Andalusian Parliament, namely: that the Andalusian Health Service (SAS) has extended by two and a half years the emergency contract (by hand) with the private clinics, taking advantage of the exceptional legal framework allowed by the central government at the height of the pandemic, when it was already repealed.
A system which starts in 2020, but which the Council extends through extensions and additions of expenses until May 2023, tripling the initial budget which it granted to private clinics to empty the bloated waiting lists of patients for a surgery.
In the meantime, two key dates occur: in May 2021, the central government repeals the royal decree which prioritized emergency contracts to respond to Covid, and a month later, in April, the Ministry of Finance sends an instruction written to all the departments of Andalusia. The government – including the SAS – has urged them to stop using this procedure which has already been “totally repealed” and should therefore have “residual” use.
Despite the written warning and the repealed regulations, the Ministry of Health continued for two more years to extend these contracts by hand, stretching a first file born with 70 million budgets – to direct patients to private clinics – and finished above 243 million euros.
This deaf ear to the law, to the directives of the State Market Council and the Ministry of Finance itself is what pushed the PSOE to place the crime of prevarication at the epicenter of its complaint. This is the criminal indicator that the judge in charge of the case assumed, regardless of the fact that the investigations lead him to investigate other criminal indicators reported by the PSOE, such as embezzlement.
This newspaper revealed that the SAS had been awarding million-dollar contracts to private clinics for two years, using the already expired pandemic legal framework and against Treasury criteria. elDiario.es published the original file, of 70 million, and the four resolutions of extensions and continuous amendments to the initial budget which ended up tripling two years later. This information was published on the night of Sunday March 12, 2023.
In the 48 hours that followed, two significant events occurred: one, SAS Centrale d’Intervention notified the management team in writing that it had detected serious irregularities in emergency contracts during fiscal year 2021; and secondly, the Junta de Andalucía suddenly announces the suspension of this type of contracts.
News, notice of intervention and termination of contracts
On Monday March 13, 2023, this newspaper published the continuation of the exclusivity that it had launched the day before: the Andalusian government’s contracts with private clinics run until June 2023 with an expenditure of 243 million. The initial budget for this file was 70 million euros in hand-picked bonuses, but Health extended these contracts four times for almost two years, with successive additions of expenses, until reaching 243 million at l summer 2023.
The SAS then admitted having authorized two new extension resolutions at the end of 2022, previously extending emergency contracts with private healthcare by two and a half years.
24 hours later, on Tuesday March 14, the spokesperson for the Andalusian government, Ramón Fernández Pacheco, announced the cancellation of emergency contracts and assured that the SAS would return to ordinary procurement, with publicity and participation , from June 30. , when the last extension of the hand-picked contracts expired. “The objective is that they do not continue to be extended” [los contratos de emergencia]confirmed Fernández Pacheco, to questions from journalists after the Governing Council.
This same Tuesday, March 14, the auditor of the SAS sent in writing to the general management “a notification prior to the issuance of the provisional report” relating to contractual contracts during the 2021 financial year. This writing constitutes a warning prior to the SAS. you will receive an unfavorable report, which includes failure to comply with regulations or “particularly relevant qualifications”. It is like a warning signal, which is regulated in article eighteen of the resolution of October 27, 2021 of the general intervention of the Junta de Andalucía.
From there, the SAS is informed of the objections of the Intervention, which finally reach it in the provisional report on contractual contracts 2021, and which is dated June 12, 2023 (even with emergency contracts with private clinics in force). The SAS presents allegations which are refuted by the Intervention and the tax body reiterates in the final report all its criticisms against the abuse of emergency contracts: the abuse of hand-picked contracts, with which nearly 300 million euros were allocated in one year, without advertising or competition or prior inspection.
In this report, the supervisory body blames the Council for the “inappropriate” use of this type of emergency contracts a year after the impact of the health crisis, and emphasizes that such a decision has “no justification » because, in May 2021, “the pandemic was already very moderate”, and because it was more “predictable” than in 2020, “they should have already been engaged according to the ordinary procedure”. The Andalusian government reacted to the publication of this report with the same argument as its allegations, already denied by the auditors: “We did it to save lives”.
The trial against the Andalusian government for the hit-and-run contracts covers this entire route, which the socialists have already defended before the Andalusian Parliament, unsuccessfully urging the PP to accept a commission of inquiry in the Chamber before addressing to the courts. Their complaint brings together the first expenditure files of the SAS, the extensions, the amendments which inflated the budget and, finally, the report of the Council’s intervention relating to the 2021 financial year, revealed when they had already registered the complaint , And. was incorporated later, in an extension of it carried out on July 31.
Judge Santamaría has already requested documents on emergency contracts with private clinics from the General Intervention of the Junta de Andalucía, the Court of Auditors and the Central Intervention of the Andalusian Health Service (SAS). The requirement for these documents already appears in the order to open preliminary proceedings for an alleged offense of administrative prevarication, without prejudice to what may result from the investigations during the investigation phase of the case.
Anticorruption, which has just resumed the investigation into these hand-picked contracts, will have access to the documents requested by the judge leading the investigation. From now on, the prosecutor can encourage the magistrate to follow a specific line of inquiry, based on his own investigations, but it will be the court which will accept or reject his approach.
