An audit carried out by the Audit Chamber on the Metropolitan Office for Autobus services (OMSA) during the time period 22 August 2012 and 17 October 2017 has revealed serious irregularities in the contracting of purchases and services involving thousands of millions of pesos, possibly implicating high level government officials of OMSA as well as technicians of the Internal Audit Unit of the General Accounting Office of the Republic. Among the issues is a majority of payments were made for work that was not backed by regular contracts, the contracting of works to persons and companies related to the OMSA officers and multiple cases of duplication of contracting and payment of major repair work for OMSA buses.
The final report of the special investigation exposes that there are serious issues which could lead to jail sentences for those involved.
According to the report, during the period under investigation, only 51 suppliers were paid, authorized by director of OMSA, for an amount of RD$3,029,885,296 without signed contracts between the parties.
Among the discoveries were 3,535 purchase orders to 33 companies, without complying with article 28 of Procurement Law 340 for RD$2,157,174,862 that is 64% of the total purchases during the audited period.
In addition it has been established that during the management of Engineer Manuel Rivas the contracts were awarded to different companies linked to government officials of OMSA for an amount of RD$31, 979,524.
This includes the companies Suplifarma Jyy, Farmas, and Jhr Express which have as partners Rosa Elena Peña and Yumilde del Carmen Rosario Díaz who are the wife and sister of the financial manger of OMSA Faustino Rosario and Empresa Ramel Corp, represented by José Esteban Valenzuela.
Empresa Ramel Corp obtained six contracts and orders for games, making T shirts and polo shirts, breakfast, snacks, lunch and signs for autobuses for an amount of RD$18,715,749.
Farmas, Jhr Express were paid RD$11,005,243 to provide pharmaceutical products and Suplifarma Jyy were paid RD$2,258,532 for commercial operations.
The paperwork for the awarding of the contract was signed by the OMSA officials Pedro Messon, president, representing the Director General; Nelson Mejía, administration manager, member; Willian Hernández, legal consultant, member; Víctor Eugenio Torres Rosa, manager of planning and investment projects, member (up to June 2013); and Rosa María Cruz Aracena, responsible for Access to Information, member.
All of the these payments were authorized by Director General Manual Rivas and financial manager Faustino Rosario Díaz taking no notice of the functions, competency and individual responsibility of each official.
The investigators also found nine new contracts for RD$145, 564,199 to provide equipment for the OMSA workshops awarded to Tech Solution and Grupo Martisdom owned by Eddy Santana Zorrilla, accused of bribing Yuniol Ramirez, who was murdered near the UASD on 11 October 2017.
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Listin Diario
Listin Diario
17 April 2018
