Agents from the National Financial Prosecution Office (PNF) conducted raids on several organizations, including the Guadeloupe region, as part of an investigation into the Mémorial ACTe, a judicial source told Agence France-Presse on Wednesday, April 24. Following a report by the Court of Auditors in May 2019 on alleged irregularities in the awarding of several public contracts, the PNF seized the financial investigative service in June 2019 for these acts “likely to constitute a breach of the financial interests of the European Union,” according to the source.
The offices of the regional council as well as those of the social lessor, developer, and real estate operator Semsamar, the mixed heritage economy company, and the cultural engineering office BICFL were raided on Monday, the source specified. The MACTe is a cultural institution dedicated to the history, heritage, and memory of the transatlantic slave trade, slavery, and its abolition. It was inaugurated in May 2015. In early 2019, a report on the use of European funds in the overseas territories had highlighted “deviations and costly irregularities” in the implementation of the MACTe.
The magistrates had noted a “allocation of European funds” decided hastily in 2014, after the European Commission confirmed the definitive withdrawal of the 2007-2013 programming of a household waste treatment platform project, “frequent lack of compliance with public procurement procedures,” a lack of control over excessive construction management costs, despite legal control validations. At the end of 2019, it was revealed that three public contracts awarded under the presidencies of Victorin Lurel and Ary Chalus were concerned: the project management delegation (2010 and its amendment in 2017), the pre-opening and opening services of the museum until the end of 2015 and the management and operation of the MACTe for 2017.
The cultural institution has regularly made headlines. In November 2023, the regional chamber of accounts criticized its administrative, scientific, and political management, leading to a requisition by the prosecutor general of the court. President Ary Chalus and the current general director were also questioned earlier this week by the public prosecutor’s office near the Court of Auditors. Finally, its former general director, called to court for obstruction to access to public procurement, is awaiting a decision at the end of April.
