Seville, (EFE).- The director of the Andalusian Office against Fraud and Corruption, Ricardo Puyol, has ruled out on Wednesday opening an “ex officio” investigation into the emergency contracts carried out by the Board in health and road maintenance.
After the inauguration of some anti-corruption conferences organized by the Office in the Andalusian Parliament, Puyol has specified to the journalists that, although this investigation could be opened ex officio, he prefers to preserve the channels provided for in the norm and that “the action is at the request of the complainant ”.
He explained that no complaint about emergency contracts has reached the Anti-Corruption Office, for which reason “a more calm study of what has happened has not been carried out”, which is why he has refused to offer “a technical opinion”. .
“As a general criterion, publicly sanctioning emergency contracting is an error as an axiom”, Puyol has defended, adding that it is something that “has occurred in all administrations, including the General State Administration”.
No evidence of irregularity for now
After insisting that “there is still no evidence that any irregularity has been committed”, he added that emergency contracts “are legal contracts” and that “given the conditions in which this type of contractual relationship was forged, they had elements of sufficient justification.
Puyol has qualified, however, that “if massive use is made, as in a pandemic period, corrective elements can be introduced that make it possible to make what should be the exception not the rule.”
It has also added that in the Code of Ethics drawn up by this body, in which the Ombudsman and the General Inspectorate of Services have intervened, “a series of criteria for the interpretation of the Law on State Contracts in relation to the emergency contracting.
On the other hand, the director of the Andalusian Office against Fraud and Corruption has highlighted that last week the external complaints channel of the Andalusian Administration was launched “with all the conditions established by law”, such as the anonymous nature of the complainant, although at the moment no complaint has been received during this “trial period”. EFE