Lucia Salinas
11/08/2020 8:28 PM
Clarín.com
Politics
Updated 11/08/2020 8:28 PM
During the trial against
Cristina Kirchner
for the alleged address in public works, the list of witnesses is extensive.
Among which are two former members of the pre-award commission, responsible for analyzing the offers of the companies that were competing, to move towards the award.
Before the Federal Oral Court 2 (TOF 2),
two former members of that space declared,
whose testimonies reinforced a hypothesis of the prosecution:
in two days the Austral Group received, without further controls,
four contracts for more than $ 714 million.
The works doubled and tripled their terms of works, and surcharges were estimated above 56%.
In these tenders, Báez competed with himself, three of his firms bidding with a difference of cents.
The data: the pre-award commission "was fictitious and the contracts were delivered within 24 hours," judicial sources indicated.
The vice president is the main defendant in this case
where she was prosecuted as head of an illicit association that defrauded the State by directing 51 bids for $ 46,000 in favor of Lázaro Báez.
The prosecution in charge of Gerardo Pollicita and Ignacio Mahiques, argued that these contracts were awarded "under serious irregularities", added that "50% of the contracts were not terminated and the surcharges were around 65%."
Another point that the accusation highlighted is that the Austral Group "did not have the technical or operational capacity to win so many tenders."
When Austral Construcciones had only been in the field of public works for three years, the national government awarded it 20 tenders, some compulsively: on March 5 and 6, 2007 it awarded four contracts for more than $ 714 million, but for the that Báez ended up collecting $ 1.26 billion, doubling and even tripling the work deadlines. "The accusation maintains that for this to happen, there was" collusion of highway officials who did not carry out the corresponding controls. "
Lázaro Báez received in two days, four millionaire contracts with another no lesser data, in the tenders three companies of him competed, in one case two of them in a Temporary Business Unit (UTE), but it was still the same owner.
The only one outside the holding company that was bidding was Petersen (from the Eskenazi family), but in all four bids, they were disqualified.
The situation showed Báez competing with Baez
.
There was no equation to make him lose.
His companies, in what the prosecution maintains that they were "simulated tenders", offered "with proposals that showed a little difference in their price in favor of the one that was preselected to win," the complaint maintains.
First, the call for bids was authorized, once the offers were known, they had to be analyzed in the pre-award commission that must be integrated with four highway agents.
The commission was always modified days before signing the opinion that always favored Báez.
For example, in tender 10,477 to repave a section of Route 281, on December 26, 2006 the four members of the commission were appointed.
Surprisingly, on February 22, 2007, said conformation was modified, and they removed Gustavo Pereyra and Claudio Helm.
Two other specialists were appointed without prior explanations.
Five days later, that commission ruled in favor of Báez,
who on March 5 was awarded a contract by Kank and Costilla for $ 108,048,052.
The work was to be completed in 24 months, its term was doubled and it ended up paying $ 150,017,682.
The investigators were struck by the repeated movement in the pre-award Commission.
Before making a pronouncement, they removed two of its members, always the same (Pereyra and Helm) and placed another two to sign the opinion in favor of businessman K. “I never found out when I was part of the commission or when I was they took out, ”Pereyra said in his testimonial statement.
In his statements Helm was more diffuse, and pointed out that he "remembered" something about that commission, but did not give details about what he should do in it.
Among the main irregularities, “they expose a clear collusion and information trafficking with Báez” and “deliberate lack of controls” exposing “the complicity of officials.” At this point, it was pointed out that the pre-award Commission in a few days, “without further ado controls and analysis, nor time to analyze the offers ”always favored Báez.
But there was another piece of information that was observed in the bidding for Route 9. A tender was called for 199,680,000 pesos, before the opening of offers, an agreement was signed where the budget was set at 238,248,064 pesos, which ended up being the offer made by Austral Construcciones.
"It was made according to the quotation" of the businessman K. The work was won by the Austral Group, after the pre-award commission was modified.