The president of the Government of Navarra, María Chivite, reiterated this Thursday, in relation to the works to duplicate the Belate tunnels, that "that award was made with a non-suspensive objection, therefore, the procedure had to continue and today the tunnels are progressing and that is the reality".
Chivite intervened in the plenary session of Parliament to respond to an oral question from UPN regarding her allusion, in the investigation committee on public contracts, to a report by the general comptroller in which she placed a non-suspensive objection to the award of the duplication of the Belate tunnel. In reality, it was an error, as she intended to refer to the report of the delegate comptroller, which did include a non-suspensive objection, while the general comptroller issued a suspensive objection to the modified project. "I made a mistake in expressing myself when I referred in the investigation committee to the report of the non-suspensive objection to the award file for the Belate works," she admitted.
The head of the regional Executive explained that "the objective and political will of the Government - with the award - was to resolve UPN's inaction, which put lives at risk and also resulted in a millionaire fine to the Government itself from Europe."
Addressing UPN, Chivite stressed that "the investigation committee has not given them a single argument to rectify their false narrative, because the truth is one and it is what I have always defended." She added that "I may make a mistake in an expression, but I have not lied," and reproached the regionalist party for "continuing down that path because they already know where it leads them, to being tied down and anchored in that opposition."
For UPN, the parliamentarian Marta Alvárez maintained that it was "proven that a non-suspensive objection is not a positive report, but a negative one, and it warns the Government that an illegality is being committed." According to her, "they could have stopped and withdrawn directly, they could have stopped and requested a report from the Board of Administrative Contracting," insisting that "there were very intense rumors that a UTE, in which one of the companies belonged to a person with ties to Santos Cerdán, was the one that was going to get the works for the Belate tunnels; just with that they should have stopped." "But no, the director general of Public Works decided to move forward and award," she remarked.
In Alvárez's opinion, "here there is a clear political responsibility of her councilors and yours as head of the Government". He has stressed that "that you are not the one who directly awards does not exempt you from responsibility, neither if you knew it nor if you didn't know it, because as president it is your responsibility to assume the consequences of the acts of your Government", and he has assured that "the courts will rule on the existence of crimes, but it is your political responsibility, as head of the Government that awarded Belate to Santos Cerdán, they can no longer cover it up". To conclude, he has stated that "she should have already left in June of last year, today more than then, because of what has happened and for lying".