The contract, signed by the Paraguayan oil company in September last year, has been extended several times without the company fulfilling its obligations.
Petróleos Paraguayos (Petropar), chaired by Eddie Jara, confirmed that it granted a fourth extension to the Qatari firm Doha Holding Group LLC, linked to the son of the president of Conmebol, Alejandro Domínguez Pérez.
This extension is given so that the company has more time to deliver the 100,000 metric tons of diesel, for an amount of US$ 61 million.
The contract between the state-owned oil company and the aforementioned company was signed on September 30 last year, through a special contracting procedure, with subsequent publication of the documents. This accelerated the award due to the urgency of the acquisition.
However, the rush for fuel ended once the contract was awarded, as the company was supposed to deliver the fuel between October and November last year, but failed to meet this obligation.
As a result, the state-owned company has granted several extensions, but despite this, the fuel has still not been delivered.
On Friday, February 28, the third extension that the state-owned company had granted to the company expired, and with this new extension, the fourth extension is complete, as confirmed yesterday by the Communications Department of Petropar, headed by Norma Caballero.
However, despite the insistence, the agency has not reported until when this new postponement will last. The addendum and the resolution of this operation have not yet been published on the website of the National Directorate of Public Procurement (DNCP).
EXTENSIONS ALREADY GRANTED BY PETROPAR AND CORRECTIONS OF RESOLUTIONS
The contract with Doha Holding was originally due to expire on November 30 last year, but was first extended to December 31, then to January 31, then to February 28, and now another deadline has been granted, the date of which has not yet been revealed.
So far, Petropar has only published the documents for the first two addenda, which extended the deadlines until December and January, respectively.
These documents were being held by the DNCP due to observations made, since Petropar extended the contract's validity period and did not establish new deadlines for the delivery of diesel, which had expired, according to the DNCP's observations after reviewing the documents.
In this regard, the state-owned company had to rectify the two resolutions signed by Eddie Jara, with which the first two extensions were authorized. In this way, it corrected the regulatory basis used for the extension of the contract's validity.
This refers to the section corresponding to article 181 of resolution 4,401/23 of the DNCP, which regulates contracting procedures, specifically “section c”, which establishes that “the contracting party must extend the term of validity when the execution of the minimum quantities or amounts awarded has not been reached”.
However, the state company also stated in its initial resolutions that the extension of the deadlines was carried out under the regulatory support of article 67 of Law 7,021/22, which establishes that only up to 20% of the amount and term of the contracts can be modified "provided that they are necessary as a result of unforeseen circumstances and that they do not imply granting more advantageous conditions compared to those originally established."
Experts consulted by ABC agree that the first three addenda signed between Doha Holding and Petropar violated Article 67 of the law, since the contractual period for the delivery of fuel was tripled.
They point out that this new extension continues to violate said regulations, which implies a violation of the article of the law cited in the resolutions extending the deadlines.
DNCP MUST INVESTIGATE, THEY SAY
The consulted technicians point out that the only solution to this situation is for the DNCP to initiate an investigation into the causes that motivate these extensions of deadlines and, eventually, determine the nullity of the extension addenda.
They point out that in the past, the DNCP already carried out a similar investigation with one of the electronic ticketing contracts, where the resolution to modify the contract and the addenda were analyzed, which were declared irregular by the entity.
What is striking is that Petropar continues to insist on granting more deadlines to this company, given that it resorted to a special contracting procedure due to the "urgency" of purchasing fuel at a "miraculous" price (US$ 610 per metric ton).
The public oil company's open contract was to have a maximum duration of two months, as initially established, which is usual in this type of "opportunity" acquisitions.
Given the breaches, Petropar should terminate the contract with Doha Holding Group and claim the performance guarantee, for an amount of US$ 3,050,000, which the Qatari company presented in the form of an affidavit, with the signature of Sheikh Khalifa Bin Hamad Al-Thani and an alleged guarantee from the Qatar International Islamic Bank (QIIB).
If the amount is not paid, the state-owned company will have to sue the company in a local court. Otherwise, Petropar's executives would incur a breach of trust.
According to the documents, Doha Holding presented as its address in the signed contract the Jiménez Balbiani & Asociados Law Firm, owned by the family of Julio Jiménez, legal advisor of the Qatari firm and vice president of the Olimpia club, close to the president of Conmebol.
Available data indicate that Jiménez is the brother of Monserrat Jiménez, legal director of CONMEBOL and right-hand woman of Alejandro Domínguez, whose son, Alejandro Domínguez Pérez, appears in the records as a representative of Doha Holding, along with Khalifa Bin Hamad Al-Thani and Saad Doukali.
