During the afternoon, the National Directorate of Public Procurement (DNCP) published that the company Inpasa del Paraguay SA was awarded a total value of G. 54,477 million (US$ 7.9 million), managed to win the tender for the Acquisition of Absolute Alcohol with ID 412.009. For this tender, offers began to be received since last Wednesday, April 6.
Petróleos Paraguayos (Petropar) was the institution in charge of carrying out the call for tender number 412,009 under the category of “Fuels and Lubricants”, for the type of procedure of National Public Bidding (LPN). Inpasa del Paraguay SA’s legal representative is José Odvar Lopes, who was charged by the Public Ministry in 2014.
The businessman, of Brazilian nationality, was investigated for a case of sugar mega-smuggling. Precisely, in the premises of the Inpasa company (located in the district of Nueva Esperanza in Canindeyú), tons of sugar were detected without the corresponding labeling (1,400 bags of 1,000 kilograms each).
The operation was initiated by the Ministry of Industry and Commerce (MIC), when it reported the incident in January 2014, six months before the arrest (at the end of May). As a defense, Odvar Lopes’ lawyers argued that the product corresponded to a purchase made from Azucarera Iturbe belonging to the family of now Senator Rodolfo Friedmann.
In the following September, the charge had disappeared and the prosecutor who had charged the businessman was recused. The investigation has not yielded results to date. According to the portal, “Ciudad del Este Noticias”, the businessman is close to Horacio Cartes. For this reason, his case was diluted over the years, yielding zero results, eight years after the imputation.
MOST EXPENSIVE OFFER
Inpasa’s offer was the most expensive, since it offered the product at G. 6,053 per liter of alcohol (9 million liters are equivalent to G. 55,477 million). While Azucarera Paraguaya (AZPA), offered the product at G. 6,050 per liter of alcohol, resulting in; G. 54,450 million (G. 27 million cheaper than the winning offer).
BACKGROUND
According to data available on the website of the National Public Procurement Directorate (DNCP), Petropar purchased absolute alcohol five times, from March 2017 to date.
Of the five opportunities, four calls remained in the hands of the Paraguayan Alcohol Industry (Inpasa). And only one call, remained in the hands of the Paraguayan Azucarera. The last call came in December of last year. On that occasion, Azucarera del Paraguay offered the same product at G. 5,975 per liter.
While Inpasa offered the product to G. 5,990. The total amount of the contract was G. 143,400 million (US$ 21 million).
Something similar happened with the same call, but unlike the previous one, Petropar ended up choosing the most expensive offer. What is striking is the choice of the most expensive offer and, in addition, why they make a similar call only three months after the recently closed millionaire contract.
The aforementioned institution awarded one item; 9 million liters of absolute alcohol with a unit price of G. 6,053 (a liter).
PETROPAR RESPONSE
From the Communication Directorate of Petropar they responded that AZPA, although it had the cheapest offer, did not meet the financial ratios, because on average, it was negative. Therefore, he did not meet the financial requirement.
