Singue: 17 months in the Office of the Prosecutor
Ecuadornews:
The prosecutor Ruth Palacios insisted that “in the next few days important issues that the country claims will be known.” She did not want to specify the cases, but said they will come at the right time.
One of them would be Singue. The case is in previous investigation. The file has more than 187 folders with diligences, versions and expert reports.
The investigation began with a report from the Comptroller’s Office on August 1, 2017. It was an examination of the pre-contractual, contractual and execution processes of the contract for the provision of exploration services in the Singue block.
The contract was signed between the State and the Consortium integrated by Dygoil and Gente Oil. The Office of the Comptroller establishes indications of responsibility and appointment of alleged legal, administrative and economic anomalies.
It concludes, among other things, that the DGC Consortium did not comply with the requirements of the bidding rules regarding the presentation of information on its operational capacity from 2006 to 2010. The Comptroller’s Office says that a negotiating team recommended approving the negotiation without having an analysis of reports and certifications of the financing sources of the project.
For the agency, however, the ‘fair price’ of 29.3 dollars per barrel, on September 26, 2011, the DGC bid was received for 34.5 dollars per barrel and negotiated and awarded to 33.5 dollars per barrel. That increase would have caused an injury to the State of 5.2 million dollars.
The activist Fernando Villavicencio points out that there are expert reports that show that Singue is not a block, but a shared field. He assures that the reserves in 2009 were already 20.6 million barrels checked, and that the Ministry of Hydrocarbons and the contractors hid the information, and not 2 million as it had been insured. “The creation of an oil block was done illegally to benefit the consortium,” he insists.
On February 27, 2018 the Comptroller presented a clarification and pointed to a supposed responsibility involving former President Rafael Correa. He is one of the 25 investigated along with former Vice President Jorge Glas and others.
Silvana Pástor, vice president of Gente Oil, was one of the first to give a version in the Office of the Prosecutor. She says that it has been shown that the Comptroller’s report does not have the technical or legal support. She clarifies that it is a contract legitimately established in a tender and not in a special regime.
She assures that they have submitted reports from international experts in the oil industry where it is shown that the report has no head or tail. Silvana Pástor is concerned about the “pressure on the case”.
It shows documents according to which the coordinates of Singue were the same in 1998 and in 2011, and thus discarded that a block had been created to benefit the Consortium.
Defending
Process
Silvana Pástor points out that she was hired as the financial director of Gente Oil after an interview process in May 2012.
Experience
The daughter of former Minister Wilson Pástor says she has more than 25 years of experience in administration and finance in domestic and foreign firms.
Contract
The Comptroller’s Office says that the modification contract of the Singue block of August 2014 did not improve the conditions of the contract as mandated by the Hydrocarbons Law. (I)
Source https://www.expreso.ec/actualidad/caso-singue-rafaelcorrea-investigacion-fiscalia-BC2602300