The spokeswoman for Vox in the Balearic Parliament, Idoia Ribasdemands explanations from the previous Government of Francina Armengol due to the extra cost of transporting masks. As OKDIARIO revealed this Sunday, the previous Executive paid double what it cost to transport the masks and other medical supplies by air during the first months of Covid, in 2020.
The Government paid 7.3 million euros for the 15 flights contracted between Shanghai and Palma between March 27 and June 10 of that year.
Idoia Ribas has expressed herself like this: «The extra cost in air transport of medical supplies It represents a waste of more than four million euros of public money. This is another regrettable chapter of Armengol's black autumn. The news that appears today (this Sunday) in OKDIARIO details a new scandal in Armengol's management that cannot go unnoticed.
Ribas echoes the information in this newspaper and points out that the Government paid almost double the price of fifteen-way flights between Palma and China at that time. «For this reason, I will urgently request to include an oral question on this matter in the plenary session next Tuesday and I hope that the current Gobierno de Prohens shed more light on this matter,” says the Vox spokesperson.
And Ribas adds: «I will also request all the documentation related to contracts with airline companies during the pandemic. In the previous legislature there were several scandals that we were aware of and that I myself reported in plenary, although they were not properly investigated as the Government was allowed to act with impunity using the parliamentary roller.
Idoia Ribas adds that “now the tables have turned, they no longer have a majority and our group is not going to allow the corruption of those who have been directing this Autonomous Community for the last eight years to remain in the drawer. “We citizens believe that they deserve respect and to be protected from waste, from excesses, from diversions of public money that comes from the taxes that we all pay with great effort.”
Finally The Vox spokesperson demands that “all responsibilities of those who may have profited from or favored certain people or companies be cleared up, precisely taking advantage of a situation as dramatic as the Covid pandemic that caused so much suffering.
The extra cost of four million euros in the transport of masks and other medical supplies appears in the report of the Anti-Corruption Office, which in its conclusions maintains that it is logical to think that ““It would have been possible to get more affordable prices.” for the transportation of the purchased goods.
And even more so taking into account, he adds, “the strategic position of the Balearic Islands in this area and the multitude of companies that operate in our airports, and without the need to hire an intermediary, to find the companies that could do the transportation.
In order to determine whether the freight prices applied by the different companies are adjusted to the market, in 2020 the Balearic Anti-Fraud Office carried out various reports on the operational costs of commercial aviation.
The conclusion reached by the Anti-Corruption Office is that, even taking as a reference for all contracted trips the higher cost per flight for medical supplies round trip between Palma and Shanghai (201,670.08 euros), and also adding to that figure 6% of industrial profit, as established in article 131 of the General Regulations of the LCSP currently in force (RD 1098/2001), the disbursement of the Armengol Executive for the 15 flights billed to Ib-Salut It should have reached an amount of 3,025,051 euros.
An amount very far from reality: the Balearic Executive paid the airline companies contracted by emergency means 7.321.938,55 euros. There was, therefore, an extra cost for the public coffers of 4,296,887.35 euros which was the difference between the invoiced price and the calculated costs. Is a more than outstanding amount, if we take into account the context in which it occurred: in the middle of a pandemic, with the demand for tickets falling precipitously as a result of the border closure measures adopted by many countries, and the travel ban.
That is to say, there was no excess demand for flights that would pressure prices upwards, but quite the opposite.