The Directorate of Youth of the Basque Government, under the PNV between 2013 and 2019, has awarded 20 contracts without competition to companies of the member of the PNV of Gipuzkoa Aitor Elorza. EUR 361,885,95 in total. Montai Produkzioak, Denok Zuzenean, Ezkutua La Karpa and Kultur Kirol Zerbitzuak are the names of companies. According to Eldiario.es, “at least” the award of nine of these 20 contracts has been “awarded”, with a total of 184,076.2 euros. In some cases, it has been the companies in the same group that have presented the budgets for the same work. On other occasions, other companies have been submitted outside the group, but the established cross-border budgets have been presented and have been left out on several occasions, with Esteban’s companies winning contracts.

Example of Gazte Txartela

Journalist Iker Rioja gives us some examples. One of them is related to Gazte Txartela. During the years 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016, the Youth Directorate commissioned various works, all of them close to the ceiling of 18,000 euros (without VAT), but without exceeding them. That was the limit of money allowed for direct awards in those years. However, according to the journalist, “to give the appearance of competition to the awards”, the administration asked three companies for budgets each year.

Sometimes the Youth Directorate asks more than one company from the Elorza group for a budget. There are also companies that do not belong to the group: Ados Network and Loyola XXI. In all cases, both companies have submitted budgets that exceed the limits set and are automatically excluded from competition. In addition, the Youth Directorate has continued to demand budget from Ados Network for years, despite the fact that pointless budgets have been put forward over and over again: the company has presented totally equal budgets year after year, remaining time and again out of competition.