The Prosecutor's Office files a lawsuit against the director of the SCS for the "mask case"

The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office has filed a lawsuit against the director of the Canary Islands Health Service (SCS), Conrado Domínguez, and the head of the company RR7 United Limited SL, Rayco Rubén González Sánchez, for the payment of four million euros in May 2020 for a batch of masks that was never delivered to public health.

According to sources from the Public Prosecutor's Office confirmed to Efe, the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office sees indications that crimes of administrative prevarication, influence peddling, aggravated fraud and money laundering were committed in that operation.

In the lawsuit, filed this Tuesday, the Prosecutor's Office asks that the then general director of Economic Resources of the SCS, Ana María Pérez, also be investigated for these events.

In recent months, the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office has requested from the Ministry the contracts with RR7 United, resolutions, legal reports and other information within the framework of preliminary investigation proceedings in which it took statements from those involved, as well as several officials, regarding the emergency contract signed between the SCS and that company on May 25, 2020, in addition to the complainant of the events, the businessman Juan Manuel Pérez León.

The latter had requested that 59 operations for the purchase of material against covid-19 carried out by the General Directorate of Economic Resources of the SCS between 2020 and 2021 be investigated, for a total value of 32 million euros.

As Efe was able to verify in the Transparency Portal of the Government of the Canary Islands, in the case that has given rise to the Prosecutor's Office's complaint, the director of Economic Resources decided to terminate the contract awarded to RR7 United on May 13, 2021, having not received the batch of one million masks for which it had paid four million euros in advance and demanded the reimbursement of the funds, which was notified to the company on May 31.

RR7 United, subsequently, on June 29, 2021, submitted a document in which it stated its intention to comply with what was agreed and make the delivery of the contracted material as soon as possible.

Given the impossibility of supplying the 3M brand N95 masks, as it had committed to, it requested authorization to change the model for other FFP3 NRD type, from the manufacturer Honeywell, and to cancel the termination of the contract.

According to the documents published in the Transparency Portal, the SCS agreed to this change, considering that "the need for the material subject to contracting was maintained" and for "principles of public interest, rationality and efficiency."

To this end, on July 14, 2021, it contacted the company in order to assess the proposed modification and adjust the content of the service to current market prices, considering that the economic balance of the contract was maintained with an increase in the number of units to be supplied of 20% (from 1 to 1.2 million masks).

However, RR7 United did not deliver the Honeywell masks either, so the Health Department terminated the contract again.

When the case became known, the director of the SCS, Conrado Domínguez, explained that the agency he directs had initiated all the administrative procedures to recover the money advanced and recalled that at that time more than 15 contracts of this type were made and that all were completed "with significant satisfaction, because all the material arrived and was used to protect health professionals and citizens."