New scandal in Andalusia linked to public markets. The Andalusian Health Service (SAS) allocated nearly 458.3 million euros during the year 2021 through thousands of “legal fraud” contracts, as exclusively reported elDiario.es. The Intervention of the Junta de Andalucía, the Treasury body responsible for internal control of public accounts, denounced the fact that the SAS was using minor contracts to divide million-dollar contracts.
The objective was “decrease the amount” to try to justify the allocation of said public amount to the same company. Thanks to this, they managed to avoid “advertising and competition requirements”. Information that was disclosed last Saturday when SAS auditors from the provinces of Huelva, Cádiz, Córdoba and Jaén presented four reports to the general directors on the inspection of the procurement of works, goods and services.
“The legally established procedure for awarding contracts for works, goods and services has been totally and absolutely abolished, divide the subject of contracts, the award of minor contracts with an execution period exceeding one year and without the reports and authorizations”, it was indicated in the reports in question to which elDiario.es had access.
Through these reports, the Intervention of the Junta de Andalucía observed that in the SAS centers located in Cádiz, Huelva, Córdoba and Jaén, contracts valued at 1,791.2 million euros for works, services and the purchase of goods and supplies. However, the 26.94% were recorded as minor contractsreaching up to 46.49% in Huelva.
Due to the percentage of this type of contracts, the Public Treasury carried out an analysis and highlighted “a greater number and greater importance of non-compliance with legality with regard to minor contracts from peripheral centers”. In addition, this division had a common model: the same company and the same concept. This is why the intervention of the Junta de Andalucía concluded that escaped the law when cutting into small batches so as not to exceed the set limit.
The PSOE demands explanations from Moreno
The general secretary of the Andalusian PSOE, Juan Espadas, announced this Tuesday that his party would denounce in court what he describes as “alleged criminal acts”. “It is very serious and this is added to our complaint concerning the abuse of emergency contracts by hand and without control of millions of euros” from the Ministry of Health and Consumer Affairs, recalled the leader of the PSOE-A, who asked Moreno “immediately for explanations and responsibilities for these allegedly criminal acts, since all this has been hidden and denied in the seat of Parliament.
In subsequent statements released by the PSOE-A, Espadas stressed that the auditors’ report “confirms what we in the PSOE have been denouncing for more than a year and is the non-compliance with public procurement regulationsthe abuse of emergency procurement, the award of hand-to-hand contracts without procedure with private health care and now obviously also since the auditors denounce the use of this practice which is fraudulent and which is obviously denounceable from this splitting of contracts in pharmaceutical spending.
For all this, the socialist leader demanded “an immediate explanation and obviously the taking of responsibilities on the part of the Ministry of Health and logically we will proceed to court to denounce all these events which They join those of us who have already spoken out against abuse and the diversion of resources to private health care without any control for several years.
