Calp City Council has filed a motion to reopen proceedings against a decision by the Valencian Antifraud Authority finding the existence of irregularities in the award of a contract for a tourism promotional event that took place in the city in 2019. The city defends that the process is in accordance with the law and argues that in preparing the final decision, the authority overlooked the allegations raised by the municipal body in its defence.
This is a tourism promotion conference aimed at owners and managers of travel agencies and other intermediaries and professionals in the tourism sector in the UK. The City Council for Tourism felt it necessary to hold this conference in the city in the last quarter of 2019 after noticing a drop in UK visitors this summer due to the uncertainty caused by Brexit. It was decided to hire a company to organise the event, which was held from 25 to 28 November 2019, for which an urgent tender was issued, which was awarded to Jet2Holidays Limited for the sum of €24,793.39 (excluding VAT).
The Valencian Anti-Fraud Authority, which began investigating this tender following an anonymous complaint, considers in its final decision that the company submitted the required documentation after the deadline and that the contract for the event was formalised after the celebration of this meeting.
In the reconsideration complaint, the City Council argues, first, that there was a "great lack of protection" in that the allegations made by the City on 9 February 2021 were not considered after the agency sent a preliminary report on the investigation. These allegations were based on two technical reports, one by the head of Internal Affairs and the other by the head of Economic Development and responsible for the contract.
On the other hand, the city points out in the reopening complaint that the contracted company submitted the documents in due time. In this regard, the City states that by decree of the Mayor dated November 15, 2019, it was decided to accept the proposal of the award table in favour of the tenderer Jet2holidays Limited and it was asked to submit the required documents within 10 working days, a deadline which ended on November 29. The company submitted the documents on 26 November, "in due form and time; therefore, the award is in accordance with law".
Regarding the signing of the contract, the City acknowledges that it took place after the celebration of the event, on 27 December 2019, pointing out that "we are speaking before a simple formal error, the violation of which has no consequence, nor can it be considered a cause of nullity of the full law and that the documentation submitted by the company in the time and form went in any case the award".
With the request for reconsideration, the municipality asks the Valencian Anti-Fraud Authority to revoke the final decision of this investigation and to adopt a new decision that takes into account the allegations of the Calp municipality, which insists that the award procedure carried out complies with the legal requirements for public contracts.