The judge insists on pointing to the Andalusian Government Council for withdrawing prior control of health emergency contracts | Spain

Although from the Andalusian government it insists on transferring the idea that Judicial investigation into health emergency contracts granted by finger by the Andalusian Health Service (SAS) between 2020 and 2024 for 242 million euros will end up filed or reduced to a mere administrative reproach, the fact is that the investigating judge continues to collect reports related to those awards, for which they are accused of Alleged administrative prevarication the three SAS managers The President Juan Manuel Moreno has had since he arrived at the Autonomous Executive. The last claim, at the proposal of the Anti -Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, asks the general intervention of the Junta de Andalucía for the file that determined the Governing Council to replace on October 6, 2020 – follow months after the pandemic – the prior control of certain expenses, organs and services, for permanent financial control, which implies a review implies a posteriori Of those games.

Judge Javier Santamaría, who instructs the case, I already required all information related to memory that endorsed the decision to change the control system of certain expenses and services of the SAS last November. Both the magistrate and the Anti -Corruption Prosecutor want to understand under what reasons the files of the Millionaire Emergency contracts that rose to the Governing Council between 2020 and 2024 were approved, covered by a regulation approved during the pandemic, but that had declined when they continued to be awarded. What is requested to the intervention is now “the file (or in its case, request, proposal, consultation or any other related document) that gave rise to the broadcast” of that memory by which it was decided to replace the previous control with the permanent one, according to the providence that was advanced by the newspaper ABC already the one that has had access to this newspaper.

In that memory, written by the then general auditor of the Board, Amelia Martínez, who is now a Vice Minister of the Treasury, no specific arguments are offered that support the change in the control system and the measure is justified in the need to guarantee « greater agility and efficiency in management. » This new system, denounced by the PP in the case of the ERE, It forces to analyze the expenses once they have occurred, so the repairs are reflected with a lot of delay with respect to when the infractions could be committed, which also conditions the delay of the response by the administration to those objections.

It has been precisely those subsequent reports of the intervention that have uncovered the abuse and irregularities of this emergency hiring system by the SAS. But not only. All reports made by provincial auditors related to minor health contracts – which also allowed them to be granted by finger – awarded by the provincial Purchasing Centrals of the SAS are headed by the change in the way of controlling those expenses. Precisely, The awards corresponding to 2021 are also being investigated by a court in Cádiz, that too He has accused his purchasing boss in that province. The Moreno government allocated 1,223 million to the minor contracting in the eight provinces in that year, where a good part of them were fractional and in which the intervention detected irregularities in 92% of cases.

For the PSOE, as stated in its complaint, this change in financial control was decisive to protect the abuse of emergency contracts after the pandemic, where agility in award procedures was no longer necessary. Sources of the Ministry of Finance, however, defend the change and even point out that, without this control a posteriori, the intervention could not have detected the alleged fractional contracts in the provincial purchasing plants, which are also investigated.

The file on the justification memory of the change in the form of control of certain SAS expenses is not the only thing the judge has requested at the request of the Prosecutor’s Office. The intervention “The complete files related to the Disconformity Report of the Central Intervention of the SAS of August 11, 2020” and “Any other disagreement report in contracts of contracts followed by the emergency procedure in the period in which they were subject to prior inspection” has also been requested to the intervention, if the intervention issued them; In addition to the documentation of the “files processed by emergency procedures for the Central Service (of the SAS) in the period 2021-2023 ″. It also requires the Chamber of Accounts indicating the auditors that participated in the Report of Compliance Compliance of the contracts processed by the Board and its entities linked to the management of the Health Crisis of the COVID and that was approved by the Plenary of the Chamber of the Chamber on July 26.

The instructor has also decided to postpone the declaration of the three auditors of the SAS investigated until all this information is received, as well as the statements of witnesses requested by the PSOE of Andalusia, which exercises the particular accusation.