126 people participate in the conference on unjust enrichment organized by Cosital Valencia and the Anti-Fraud Agency

Courses, Press release

Valencia. March 25, 2021. In order to share reflections and proposals for the necessary measures to redirect the path of unjust enrichment to its exceptionality, the Valencian Anti-Fraud Agency in collaboration with COSITAL Valencia have organized a conference-debate.

Under the webinar format, the session had speakers belonging to both external control bodies: Antonio Mira-Perceval Pastor, Síndic of the Comptes Sindicatura de la Generalitat Valenciana and Carlos Cubillo Rodríguez, Technical Director of the First Department of the Prosecution Section of the Court of Accounts; as an intern: Teresa Moreo Marroig, Delegate Comptroller of the Autonomous Community of the Balearic Islands and Jorge García Hernández, General Comptroller of the Gandía City Council and from the consultative sphere: Patricia Boix Mañó, Senior Legal Counsel of the Valencian Community Legal Council.

The day began with a presentation by Vanesa Felip, president of Cosital Valencia and member of the participation council of the Valencian Anti-Fraud Agency, who thanked the participants for their involvement in a session that brought together 126 attendees from both the online platform and from the AVAF YouTube channel.

The interventions and the subsequent debate, moderated by Irene Bravo Rey, head of the AVAF Prevention Service, made it possible to present different points of view tending to the common objective of minimizing irregularities derived from abusive and recurrent practices of unjust enrichment and their economic treatment Through the exceptional figure of extrajudicial recognition of credits (REC, in the case of local entities), the following can be drawn as the main joint conclusions:

1st) The sector of activity in the public sector where this figure is used most frequently is contracting.

2nd) The main causes of its abuse are the lack of budgetary discipline, standardized administrative procedures and planning.

3rd) In general, the abuse of the path of unjust enrichment would be stopped by applying the principles of good administration and, especially, that of legality. Thus, the procedures provided for in the respective sectoral regulations must be applied both to carry out the order of the provision and to compensate who has executed it (in the case of contracting, the provisions of article 42 of the Law of Public Sector Contracts) .

4th) Other adequate prevention mechanisms to stop irregular practices go through the adequate planning of recruitment, aligned with budgets, as well as the sufficiency, adaptation and training of human resources of intervention services, legal and recruitment managers, without prejudice to raising awareness of the situation throughout the organization, and implementing complaint boxes.

5th) For those exceptional cases in which the REC must be resorted to due to unjust enrichment, a clear legal regulation of its procedure should be articulated, in line with the recommendations of the Audit Reports of the RECs of Local Entities, 2018, made by the Court of Accounts and the Sindicatura de Comptes, as well as in the general recommendation of the AVAF. In this sense, the Balearic Islands have specific regulations.

6th) It would be convenient to reflect on the scope of article 28.2e) of RD 424/2017 on Internal Control, for legal certainty and accommodation to the functions of the intervention.

7th) Mechanisms should be articulated that allow to settle possible responsibilities of the authorities, personnel at the service of the Public Administrations and public and private companies that accept and carry out the orders outside the law. Regarding the former, accounting responsibility stands out, compatible with disciplinary, administrative, transparency and criminal legislation. Always bearing in mind the difficulties of management, especially in municipalities with few resources.

The director of the AVAF, Joan Llinares, closed the day by thanking the participants for their contributions and emphasizing the importance of abiding by the principle of legality and the general principles of contracting to close the door to arbitrariness and, with it, the affectation of fundamental rights such as equality. “This type of conference should serve to avoid the normalization of this practice in our administrations. Speaking publicly about these contracting anomalies is the first step to solve this problem ”, Llinares highlighted in his conclusion.

Finally, it should be noted that one of the functions of the Valencian Anti-Fraud Agency (AVAF) is to prevent fraud and corruption and, for this reason, by Resolution of the Director no. 122/2020, of May 11, approved its general recommendation: “The path of unjust enrichment in the public sector: use or abuse?”, Noting how the use of unjust enrichment, is by nature exceptional, has become a common practice in our public administrations, being an important source of risk of fraud and corruption.

You can access the complete sesssion in this link

Unisocietat in Riba-Roja

Courses

The month of February ended with the first of the training activities of the Unisocietat program sponsored by the Valencian Anti-Fraud Agency, in 2021, with a successful participation of 150 people.

Fernando Flores, professor at the University of Valencia, with the lecture «Does freedom of expression have limits or not? On February 19, the cycle of conferences began with which it is intended to stimulate debate and mutual learning.

With an online format, Anselm Bodoque, Head of the AVAF Training service presented the session and the joint project with the Vice-Rector’s Office for Territorial Projection and Society of the University of Valencia, which aims to offer quality multidisciplinary training through lectures given by University professor.

New edition of Docufòrum organized by the Miguel Hernández University of Elche and the Valencian Anti-Fraud Agency

Courses, Press release

On January 8, a new edition of Docufòrum was held, organized by the Miguel Hernández University of Elche (UMH) and the Valencian Anti-Fraud Agency. This Docufòrum activity was aimed at students in the fourth year of the Degree in Journalism, specifically in the subjects of Political Communication and Public Opinion, and Ethics and Professional Deontology.


The documentary, “Corruption: harmful organism”, around which the debate is articulated, gathers numerous doctrinal and civic contributions in matters of public ethics and citizen participation, it focuses on the account of the personal and professional circumstances of whistleblowers who have denounced irregularities and corruption cases. The exemplary value of these stories is a good pedagogical instrument to publicize the phenomenon of corruption, also closely linked to the function of protecting the whistleblower legally attributed to the Agency.


At the end of the documentary, the students took part in a final round table with the participation of Carmen López Rico, assistant professor of the Department of Social and Human Sciences in the area of ​​political science and administration, of the Faculty of Social and Legal Sciences and Lis Gaibar, doctoral student at the UMH with technicians from the Valencian Anti-Fraud Agency.