Senior Esquerra officials defend the DGAIA's management: "There were incidents, but no one pocketed any money."

BarcelonaThe humanitarian emergency caused by a large influx of unaccompanied minors (at a rate of around 100 young people per day) and the years of budgetary extensions in the Generalitat (Catalan government) limited the capacity to award new services. Faced with this situation, the former leadership of the Department of Labor, Social Affairs, and Families argued in Parliament this Wednesday that it had to opt for emergency contracts with entities between 2016 and 2020, a formula reserved only for very exceptional situations. However, the Audit Office considers that these contracts were made without sufficient justification in the context of a national emergency, catastrophe, or immediate need to assist people in danger.

Five former senior officials of the regional ministry and the DGAIA, all appointed by Esquerra in the governments of presidents Puigdemont and Torra (Junts X Catalunya), have defended in their appearance how they acted to contract the places in juvenile centers that were needed in those years and how the processing of economic benefits for persons who have left guardianship During the period in which care for minors increased, it continued at 155 and a pandemic. Both issues are being investigated by the Office of the Comptroller and the Anti-Fraud Office, but those appearing were "proud" of how they acted, without budgets, without being able to plan arrivals, and without leaving any child unattended, they said.

They have all justified emergency contracting, rather than regular contracting, as the only solution to avoid leaving these children unattended. The option of regular tenders would have lengthened the deadlines and services would have been interrupted, explained today the former deputy in the department, Oriol Amorós, the person in charge of presenting the allegations in the Office of the Comptroller's accusatory report, which he criticized for ignoring the corrections and assessments made.

In his turn, Josep Ginesta, who preceded Amorós in office, admitted that during those years when the reception and protection system was under maximum strain, there were "administrative incidents, but no irregularities." He emphasized that all procedures carried out through the emergency route met all the legal requirements, including the collective approval of the governments led by Carles Puigdemont and Quim Torra.

Controls also under the emergency route

Ginesta, now secretary general of the employers' association Pimec, emphasized that despite the speed of the process (two months instead of the nine or eleven it takes through the ordinary process), the contracts continued and were subject to the "21 steps" of control before invoice payment. These steps range from the request of the subdirectorate, legal advice, general audit, credit reservation, and technical guarantees, culminating in the approval of the governing council.

Former regional minister Chakir el Homrani also appeared, illustrating the impact of the unplanned arrival of minors and an already saturated reception service due to the sharp cuts of 2011 and 2012 by the Artur Mas administration. "Every night I went to sleep with a WhatsApp message telling me how many children were sleeping in the police stations; two here, four there," he lamented.

The images of the minors, arriving from the south of the Iberian Peninsula in buses paid for by organizations, sleeping in police stations, prompted the public administration to react to find decent places for these children. Amorós recalled the difficulties in opening new centers due to neighborhood opposition, expanding places in a saturated network, and even finding professionals, so it was decided to double the number of places in the services where there was space and directly extend the contracts so as not to leave the shelters without kitchen or cleaning services. "We continued with the same company, the one that had won a public tender and for the same price," she indicated. Later, when the financial situation of the Generalitat allowed it, the debts to the companies were paid, updating the rates to address the increase in spending and avoid "unjust enrichment" of the administration.

The effect of Article 155

"It was difficult for us, but it ended up being tidy. There was no misuse of public resources, unless it is considered misuse, such as caring for unaccompanied or vulnerable minors," Ginesta insisted, explaining that after 2018, the debts were paid. Finally, and in "record time" following a European directive, in 2020 the contracting model was changed, and the DGAIA went from contracting all positions through public tenders to social agreements, which provides greater transparency and clarity because all companies compete for a fixed price in line with the portfolio of services.

To top it all off, she recalled that the nine months in which the State took autonomy from the Government through the implementation of Article 155 resulted in a "bottleneck and management blunders" that left bills unpaid and contracts unrenewed. "Law 155 came without any instruction manual, and the departments had to process it as best they could," he explained, later criticizing Junts for not being "solidary" and forgetting that he was also part of those governments. In any case, he insisted that "they were handled miserably."

Calvo's justification

In turn, Ricard Calvo, who was Director General of the DGAIA between 2016 and 2017, has followed the same path as his colleagues and has justified each and every one of his decisions by asserting that he found a totally strained system due to the cuts made by Convergència i Unió, which eliminated residential places.

Calvo was dismissed for alleged irregularities in the awarding of contracts to a company where he was on leave and to which he returned three months after his dismissal, but he denied any conflict of interest, as evidenced by the fact that the Prosecutor's Office closed the case. In this sense, he stated that from his position he could not influence the contracts and denounced the media persecution to which he was subjected.

The DGAIA stands tall.

On the other hand, Ester Cabanes, who headed the DGAIA until September of last year, has spoken for the first time about the case of the protected minor who was raped for months, claiming that it was the agency's professionals who "detected" the girl's exploitation following an escape from the center. "If the DGAIA hadn't done what it did, Operation Damocles would never have existed", Cabanes said in the same appearance in relation to the name with which the Mossos d'Esquadra baptized the investigation into the gang, dismantled in August of last year. Cabanes has taken pride in the interventions made by the professionals and officials who work in collaborating entities and in the DGAIA itself and has assured that in the five years in which he was in charge of the Prosecutor's Office in the treatment of sexually assaulted minors.

As Cabanes explained, without wanting to go into details of the file to protect the identity of the minor, the girl was between May and October 2021 in the care of the DGAIA, although the parents maintained custody and decisions. educators noticed strange behavior and warned that she had a "relationship with an unsuitable person." were under the DGAIA, they are not identified and many parents still do not know that their children have suffered sexual abuse.