It was confirmed that the members of the bidding committee of the Regional Government of La Libertad, During the administration of César Acuña Peralta, they illegally hired a company with no experience and headed by a 23-year-old young woman, for the construction of a hospital in Virú for S/194 million.
Acuña defended the award and denied the existence of acts of corruption.
However, an audit by the Comptroller’s Office determined that Walter Zevallos Apolitano, Mario Rodríguez Miranda and Arturo Giles Mendoza manipulated the process to benefit the firm LC&EC Constructora, Consultora y Servicios, owned by Lucero Coca Condori.
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A personalized modality
The visit log from César Acuña’s office indicates that Lucero Coca Condori’s father, Juan Coca Rojas, visited him at the regional government headquarters. But Acuña alleged that they did not hold a personal meeting.
The truth is that the The Comptroller’s report concludes that Acuña’s officials conspired to grant him the approval of the million-dollar project in Virú. In that way?
They did not require Lucero Coca Condori’s construction company to comply with basic requirements, such as proving experience in the field of hospital construction. If the three officials agreed to make this demand, Lucero Coca could not have proven that his company built several hospitals and the bidding committee would have necessarily had to disqualify it.
Here is the move of César Acuña’s officials.
Instead of withdrawing the construction company from the tender, incredibly the committee awarded it five points“which did not apply to him because he did not present all the required certifications,” states the Comptroller’s report.
It was not the only manipulation of the process that the members of the committee carried out to guide the contract in favor of the Lucero Coca construction company.
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Builder with crown
For example, the officials involved baselessly disqualified the proposal of the Brontes Consortiumso that in this way the Lucero Coca construction company would remain the only option, the audit indicates.
“The committee did not accept the offer from the Brontes Consortium, arguing the existence of divergences (in the content of the documents it presented), so it was appropriate to request that the offer be corrected,” says the Comptroller’s Office. It wasn’t like that. They simply canceled the Brontes Consortium proposal.
Besides, Lucero Coca Condori, the screen owner of LC&EC Constructora, presented inaccurate information to support the experience of the construction resident and documents that had not been authorized by the corresponding professional.
Those on the committee also raised no objections and gave it the green light.
“The contract for the execution of the work was signed, despite the fact that in the documents presented for its perfection, modifications were found regarding the number of months and the incidence of the professionals considered as part of the key professional team that would participate in the execution of the work,” the report describes.
Due to everything found during the audit, the Comptroller’s Office contradicts what was said at the time by César Acuñaand its regional manager, Herguein Namay Valderrama.
When the Sunday newspaper “Panorama” originally uncovered the case, making it clear that a young girl with no experience was the main contractor of the Regional Government of La Libertad, Acuña and Namay supported not only the contract for the construction of the Virú hospital, but also the enabling of a highway from Trujillo to Huanchaco for S/121.5 million.
There were two contracts that César Acuña awarded to Lucero Coca’s front company for S/315.6 million, as will be seen later.
For the Comptroller’s Office, the officials who awarded the contract for the Virú hospital would have alleged criminal responsibility for awarding the construction of the Virú hospital to LC&EC Constructora, from Lucero Coca. Therefore, it recommends that the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office initiate criminal actions against the officials involved.
YOU CAN SEE: Acuña annulled only one of the two million-dollar contracts with the trout construction company
A poor contractor
In another inspection action, the The Comptroller’s Office also detected deficiencies in the construction of the Trujillo-Huanchaco highwaya work that former governor César Acúña – who is now running for the Presidency of the Republic – awarded for S/121.5 million to LC&EC Constructora, of the aforementioned Lucero Coca Condori.
The Auditors located cracks in the pavements of the road corridor, which reflects the inexperience of the construction company. This and other incidents indicated by a new report from the Comptroller’s Office would confirm that the awarding of the contract for the construction of the Trujillo-Huanchaco highway in favor of Lucero Coca’s company could also have been manipulated by officials of the Regional Government of La Libertad who responded to César Acuña.
First, because two officials of the bidding committee who were part of the suspicious award of the construction of the Virú hospital, were also part of the committee for the successful construction of the Trujillo-Huanchaco highway. They are Walter Zevallos Apolitano and Arturo Giles Mendoza.
In fact, on November 21 of this year, the The Comptroller’s Office pointed out – as in the case of the Virú hospital – the members of the bidding committee disqualified another competing consortium, However, it complied with all the technical bases. They did it with the obvious purpose of benefiting LC&EC Constructora de Lucero Coca, which seems to have enjoyed the crown in the Regional Government of La Libertad, during the mandate of César Acuña.
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The crimes would be collusion and incompatible negotiation
- The public procurement consultant and former member of the State Contracting Court, Peter Palomino Figueroa, based on the Comptroller’s reports on the case, pointed out that the crimes involved in the case of the awarding of the construction of the Virú hospital would be collusion and incompatible negotiation.
- “(The officials would have committed) the crimes of collusion because there is an economic prejudice for the State, where the penalty is 15 years in prison. In addition, the crime of incompatible negotiation, which implies a penalty of 8 years for (presumably) taking an undue interest (for the benefit of a third party),” he explained.
