The Canary Islands Parliament's investigation committee on the purchase of health supplies during the pandemic proposes to strengthen transparency, toughen legality controls for new health emergencies, and modify Article 120 of the Public Sector Contracts Law.
The opinion, which was approved this week in the Plenary with the support of CC, PP, Vox, and AHI, and the dissenting vote of PSOE, NC-bc, and ASG, who presented a minority opinion, incorporates the so-called "fit test." This mechanism obliges the administration, before resorting to emergency contracting, to previously rule out solutions in three stages.
Firstly, it must be analyzed whether the problem can be resolved with its own means or through framework agreements; secondly, to assess the ordinary urgent procedure, and only as a last resort, to resort to the emergency route.
The report also requires that the need for the contract, the cause-and-effect relationship, the suitability of the supplier, and the reasonableness of the price be precisely justified. Likewise, it proposes to establish a traceability system that includes a minimum file with contacts, offers, orders, and invoices within a maximum period of one month from the adoption of the agreement.
The document, obtained by Europa Press, also proposes the creation of an internal chronological register of meetings and negotiations with intermediaries or third parties, in order to prevent parallel or informal decision-making channels. To this, it adds a single platform for publishing contracts, a real-time fund tracking portal, and specific controls against conflicts of interest, unnecessary intermediaries, and prices above market.
The Chamber also proposes to clearly define which bodies are responsible for purchases, activate specialized teams when appropriate, strengthen checks on advance payments, verify the solvency of suppliers through a register of suitable operators, and implement integrity controls to avoid conflicts of interest or overpricing.
Along the same lines, the regional government is urged to provide the General Intervention with more human and technological resources, in order to audit contracts above certain economic thresholds; to review the decrees of the Canary Network for Epidemiological Surveillance and the emergency response scheme, and to establish a multidisciplinary committee aligned with the standards of the WHO International Health Regulations.
The State is urged, in addition to adapting Article 120 of the Public Sector Contracts Law to major emergencies, to allow investigative commissions to access, confidentially and proportionally, fiscal information of natural or legal persons directly linked to the investigated case, to promote national production of sanitary material and to set reference prices for critical supplies.
Political responsibilities and contracts under scrutiny
The report identifies the former Canarian president, Ángel Víctor Torres, the former director of the SCS, Antonio Olivera, and former councilors Julio Pérez and Blas Trujillo, as politically responsible for the contracts during the pandemic, although at the same time it admits that only one of the 1,390 contracts analyzed, that of RR7, presents irregularities and constitutes a "very serious breach" of political control over essential public funds, given that four million were paid in advance, in two installments, for one million masks that were never delivered.
Likewise, the commission concludes that the Executive's reaction was "late, insufficient, and politically unacceptable" and maintains that the Government's responsibility "cannot be solely placed on the technical firm or on lower levels."
Regarding the Soluciones de Gestión contract, for 12.2 million, the commission considers that Olivera assumed an "active, concrete, and continuous" political role, while Torres continued and personally promoted actions "incompatible" with the position of a president.
However, the report emphasizes that the assignments are "impeccable" from an administrative point of view and that they contributed to reinforcing the protection of health personnel, in addition to the fact that the four payments were always made after receiving the material.
In relation to Megalab (5.8 million), the commission appreciates a pattern of "privileged" access to the government network, but at the same time highlights the company's solvency, that there is "no indication" of irregularity and that its actions had a very positive social impact by facilitating, through tests, family reunions and avoiding at least 83 deaths.