Imprenta del Valle in a tangle of contracts and subcontracts – Cali – Colombia

The old one Valley Printingnow Impretics, is in the midst of complaints and controversy over the amount of direct hires with Governors, Mayors, Congress, Councils, Hospitals, Universities and Government entities in recent years.

In the department it is assured that the Printing Press was sentenced to disappear from the printed world, but it jumped to the world of technologies and services.

The Impretics name rang out as the Anti-Corruption Unit of the Comptroller’s Officefaced with an alleged patrimonial detriment of 1,854 million pesos, ordered the seizure of bank accounts and assets of the mayor Jorge Ivan Ospinaas well as accounts and properties of those who took part in the inter-administrative agreement.

The lawyer and former prosecutor Élmer Montaña It maintains a follow-up, together with the Control Ciudadano Colombia team, on public contracting in Cali and the department.

In his inquiries he points to the Departmental Printing Integral Solutions and Information Technology and Communications (Iimpretics), name by which the old Printing Press has been known for five years.

In the department they emphasize that it has been a company that removed the shadow of disappearing in the printed world and entered into dynamics to provide technological, service and communications services.

For Montaña, that company became the link for the illegal celebration of contracts with entities of various kinds in the country.

the old printing press

To the Printing DepartmentThey founded it in 1928. Since 1972 it became a State Industrial and Commercial Company. Until 2018 it focused on printing documents.

That 2018, the Assembly of the Valley, in the administration of Dilian Francisca Toro, approved a reform to the statutes of the Departmental Printing Office to become Impretics (Integral Solutions and Information Technology and Communications), says Montaña.

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According to Montaña, now a candidate for mayor, with that figure it was no longer just a stationery printing company and stationery services, but it could offer more than 357 kinds of goods, works and services that no public or private company in the country would be able to offer. able to serve.

According to the complaint, it extended to communication technologies; civil works and construction in general; construction of intelligent buildings; promotion activities of a scientific and technological nature; or celebrate strategic alliances of any nature.

Also to the provision of electrical, wind and solar energy service and, in general, any type of energy; take on outsourcing processes for security, cleaning and other personnel; commercialize, operate and distribute all types of goods and services in public and private entities; aerial advertising; organize massive social and artistic events; sale of all kinds of sporting goods; hardware and carpentry.

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The procedure is covered by Law 1150 of 2007, which defines five types of contracting, including direct contracting, through inter-administrative agreements and contracts, where there are no bidders or free competition between contractors.

There is no use of the Public Tender, the Abbreviated Selection, the Merit Contest or the Minimum Amount that require selection processes in accordance with Law 80 of 1993 to guarantee free competition among interested parties.

Of the agreement with the Secretary of Security

Impretics, which has a payroll of 20 employees and some 30 contractors, has contracted directly in inter-administrative agreements and contracts with any public entity, says Montaña.

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The entanglement between the Mayor’s Office and Impretics relates to a contract signed by the Secretary of Security and Justice, in charge of Carlos Rojas, at the end of 2020.

The mission was to improve the infrastructure of the video surveillance system and guarantee its operation, as one of the technological tools for the care and prevention of incidents and crimes.

The Secretary of Security presented an invitation to Impretics to sign an “inter-administrative agreement” to join technical and administrative efforts in the maintenance of the infrastructure and the supply of equipment and expansion of video surveillance components with their respective installation, integration and labor.

Impretics proposed a counterpart for the maintenance of 129 cameras, for 426 million pesos.

The entity assures that “there was no detriment. At the end of the Inter-Administrative Agreement, the maintenance of 612 cameras that worked in their entirety and that were fully received by the Secretary of Security and Justice and the Metropolitan Police of Cali “.

The contract, which referred to the execution of more than 5,740 million pesos in three weeks, was signed on December 9; on December 10 it began to be executed; 18 was modified; the first audit report was delivered on the 23rd; on the 29th the final report from the supervisor arrived, and on the 31st it was closed.

Impretics subcontracted the maintenance of the cameras with the Windetec Temporary Union. To this he responds that “Windetec accredited experience of six contracts signed with public and private entities related to preventive and/or corrective maintenance of CCTV”.

Write down that “seven (7) crews and/or work teams were formed, in charge of maintenance, but the installation of cameras was not carried out, since the agreement did not contemplate it“.

Faced with questions about the prices of the supplies and equipment necessary for the agreement, the entity affirms that they were established in the planning phase carried out by the Secretariat and market prices and the guide of the Ministry of the Interior were taken as a reference.

Rojas maintains that the contract was made institutionally and did not have the details or documentation of a subcontract.

About outsourcing

Montaña repeats that with 20 employees and 30 contractors, Imprectics cannot comply with so many inter-administrative agreements and contracts, so it subcontracts the contractual object with third parties, in particular foundations and Non-Governmental Organizations, some created to execute each contract.

This subcontracting, which is done under the rules of private law and for which no accounts are rendered, would be done for less than the value initially contracted and thus money would vanish. Montaña, as a lawyer, maintains that the crime of contract is configured without compliance with legal requirements.

Regarding what has happened with the complaints, according to Montaña, the Attorney General of the Nation has been busier “pursuing front-line boys while the Valle del Cauca Comptroller’s Office has several contracts of the type denounced with Iimpretics.”

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