Joy-riding  CSS board members called to explain

The Attorney General’s Office and the Administration will demand details of an all-expenses-paid trip by three members of the board of directors of the Social Security Fund (CSS) to Mexico, just just before the award of a $168 million contract to a company with a dubious background.

They will also request all the documentation related to the tender.

The Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office will ask the Social Security(CSS) for details of how the expenses of the trip of Miguel Edwards, Esmeralda Buchanan and José Alba were met. It seeks to establish, among other things, the conditions of the $168 million contract for the installation of a  drug storage and distribution system.

The  Public Ministry will also request information about the complaints that warn of tax fraud in Mexico previously exposed by La Prensa s and similar operations that allegedly involve companies that participated in the tender.

On April 7, the CSS awarded the Consortium Salud en Control, made up of the Panamanian PMG Logisc Corp and the Mexican Intercontinental de Medicamentos, SA de CV, the tender for $ 168 million. The Panamanian company had no track record in the field and it issued photos showing the local director donating items to fight the coronavirus, prior to the awarding of the contract.