Institutional Relations

More than 800 people receive training from the Valencia Antifraud Agency in matters of ethics and public integrity and the fight against corruption during 2020

València, March 30, 2021.- The Valencian Anti-Fraud Agency has presented its Activity Report for the year 2020 to the Les Corts Board, thus fulfilling the mandate contained in article 22 of Law 11/2016 for the creation of the agency.
The award ceremony took place in the Pati de Les Corts and the President of Les Corts, Enric Morera, as well as the members of the Les Corts Board were present.
On this occasion, the Activity Report has been delivered in digital form through a pen as well as a QR code from which the document can be easily downloaded. In this way, the AVAF contributes to the reduction of paper consumption and economic spending by adhering to the 2030 sustainability commitments
The Report includes the activity carried out by the Agency in 2020 in the area of training, prevention and documentation; the legal and protection area of the complainant; analysis and research; administration, recruitment and human resources and communication.
After the ceremony of delivery of the Report, the director of the AVAF, Joan Llinares has attended to the media and has highlighted some of the most important points developed by the Agency during a year 2020 that despite being marked by the COVID crisis -19 has been more intense and has registered greater activity for this body since it began its operation at the end of 2020.
Thus, in the area of training, the Agency has offered training to more than 800 people in all the activities it has organized and in which it has collaborated, emphasizing one of the main functions entrusted to the Agency for the prevention of fraud and corruption and creating a culture based on ethics and public integrity.
Regarding the complaints received during the year 2020, they reached the figure of 226 and 85% of them were presented through the Complaints Mailbox, which has become the main channel for informing the Agency of acts and events that can be constitutive of fraud and corruption in the Valencian public administrations.
Regarding the subject matter of the complaints filed, in 32% of the cases they are in public procurement, which represents a significant increase compared to 2019, where these complaints represented 25%. 64% of the most reported public administrations were local and 51% of them are in the province of Valencia.
With regard to the protection of people who report corruption, the AVAF received 35 requests and 24 people have been granted the status of protected person, which places the Valencian Community as a benchmark when anticipating the transposition into the Spanish legal system of the European Directive 1937 / 2019 of whistleblowers, informants or whistleblowers of corruption better known as the Whistleblowers Directive.
The Director of the Agency, Joan Llinares, has stated that “this Activity Report includes all the work carried out by AVAF staff in their different areas during 2020 and is a reflection that despite the difficulties arising from the pandemic situation have not been an obstacle to carry out their functions of investigation, prevention, training and protection of the whistleblowers ”.
“I encourage you to consult the Report, a document of more than 200 pages in which the work developed over these 12 months appears and which is the confirmation of the consolidation of the Agency as a body in the fight against fraud and corruption both nationally and internationally. And as an example of this international recognition is that for the first time, the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) under the European Commission has requested the collaboration of the Agency for an operation against fraud and corruption developed in the Valencian Community ” added Llinares.