The PSOE in Andalusia has accused Miguel Ángel Guzmán and Diego Vargas, the two managers of the Andalusian Health Service (SAS) between 2019 and 2023, of being directly responsible for the awarding of 300 million euros through emergency contracts between 2020 and 2023, the majority of which —240 million— were awarded after the legal framework allowing for such contracts had been repealed. The PSOE alleges that these handpicked contracts resulted in a loss of over 24 million euros for the regional public coffers. Both Guzmán and Vargas are accused of continuous offenses of malpractice, misappropriation of public funds, falsification of public documents, and criminal organization, according to the complaint being investigated by the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office.
Guzmán served as the director general of the SAS from 2019 to 2022, after which he assumed the position of Deputy Minister of Health. He came under scrutiny in early 2024 when, just three months after leaving his position in the government, he announced his intention to join the insurer Asisa, which had been awarded 43.67 million euros in emergency contracts between 2020 and 2022. The PSOE’s complaint references his previous role as the medical director of the Vithas Málaga Hospital and highlights that Vithas Málaga Internacional was awarded express contracts totaling 20.2 million euros between 2021, 2022, and 2023 in Málaga, Sevilla, Granada, and Almería; in 2020, two contracts worth 2.2 million euros were awarded.
After being appointed as Deputy Minister in 2022, Guzmán was replaced by Diego Vargas as the head of the SAS. Both resigned from their respective positions on December 27, 2023, which the opposition saw as an acknowledgment by the government of Juan Manuel Moreno (PP) of their responsibility for the management chaos and deterioration of public health in Andalusia, possibly to protect their Health Minister at the time, Catalina García. The potential criminal responsibilities are being investigated by the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office, with the court opening a preliminary investigation into possible administrative malpractice. The PSOE estimates that the awarding of 240 million euros through non-competitive emergency contracts beyond the expiration of the 2021 Instruction from the Treasury Department resulted in at least 24 million euros in losses for the public coffers.
The complaint includes the calculation of this “presumed” amount by applying the premise that, in normal competitive public contracting, the average price reduction is at least 10%. This percentage was derived from analyzing public tenders from previous years in each Andalusian province using SAS contracting prices. It also compares this to the public contracting that took place in Málaga in 2021 with competitive bidding, showing a 10.5% reduction in the final price. The complaint highlights that none of these emergency contracts nor their subsequent extensions were presented to the Government Council for approval, as required by article 120 of the Public Procurement Law, which allowed for emergency procedures during the first state of alarm. The SAS only informed the government of the initial 70 million euros, keeping the rest of the 242 million in total secrecy.
The investigation into the alleged irregularities in the multi-million euro emergency contracts and their extensions also reveals that none of these awards were formally presented to the Government Council for approval, which is mandated by the Public Procurement Law. The only contract that could potentially comply with the emergency contracting framework was a 70 million euro contract signed on January 20, 2021. As the legal framework for emergency contracts had been repealed, the PSOE’s complaint seeks to highlight the financial losses incurred by the region as a result of these contracts awarded outside the bounds of the law.
