• 28-M The black hole of renewables in Aragon: hundreds of fractional parks and consultants who are judge and party
  • Officials of renewables in Aragon denounce: "They approved my files behind my back"

The Government of Aragon hired three consultants in 2021 to help it process the flood of renewable energy projects that were flooding the Aragonese Institute of Environmental Management (Inaga). The three evaluated hundreds of files of photovoltaic and wind installations for two years, but two of them (Satel and Quality and Services) were not allowed to analyze a single one of the projects of the giant of this bubble, Forestalia, which has presented most of the renewable projects in the region.

Why did he push them away? Because they had previously worked for that business group and therefore would have incurred an incompatibility. Given these "incompatibilities", the Inaga distributed the dozens and dozens of files of Forestalia between the public company Sarga, which analyzed 60% of the total, and the third consulting firm contracted, Vea Qualitas, which monopolized 40% of the reports on this business group.

But EL MUNDO has in its possession official documents that prove that the consulting firm Vea Qualitas also worked on numerous occasions for Forestalia. Vea Qualitas -whose commercial name is Vea Global- coordinated the project, health and safety and construction management of the facilities and activity of a pellet complex of Forestalia Renovables in Zuera (Zaragoza). The document is signed by Silvia Juana Serrano, director of Engineering of the consultancy.

Another example is the Habidite wind farm project, owned by the company Habidite Energy, owned by Fernando Sol SL, company of Fernando Samper, owner of Forestalia. To give another example, the consultant also designed and directed the work of the Sella La Hacienda Hotel Complex, owned by Fernando Samper, owner of Forestalia.

What the specifications of the Government of Aragon for the hiring of the three external consultants say is that they cannot report files when they have prepared them themselves, "or when there is any type of relationship of interest with the person, entity or group promoting the file". And Vea Qualitas has been a supplier to Forestalia since at least 2012.


Not only that. In 2020, the same year in which Inaga received the Forestalia Arapellet project, prepared by Vea Global, the CEO of this company tweeted that she was at an informative breakfast "with speakers such as Pérez Cebrián, from our preferred client Forestalia". The relationship of interest with the wind and solar giant becomes evident.

Forestalia Arapellet Project, prepared by Vea Global.E.M.

On Tuesday, when this newspaper published the first evidence on the incompatibilities of the other two consultants, Satel and Quality and Studies, the director of Inaga, Jesus Lobera, said at a press conference that there had been no irregularity and that all the files of Forestalia were made by "Sarga and another company called Vea Qualitas". "60% of Forestalia's files have been processed by Sarga and the rest by the other company I have just named." And he explained that this was because the other two had declared incompatibility.


In fact, he assured that the Inaga proceeded to "verify that all these companies were compatible with the orders that were made to them." Literally.

So, the problem is that Vea Qualitas declared itself compatible when it had exactly the same problem as the other two consultancies? The Government of Aragon refers "to the technical specifications of the contract to issue reports and environmental assessments on renewable energies where the compatibility of the companies is detailed in reference to the files they had to analyze". "I always had to record a certificate of compatibility with the file I analyzed, as was required of the three consultants in each of the files they reported," add sources from the Government of Aragon. This newspaper has accessed one of these certificates, signed by the consulting firm's own Director of Engineering.

It should be noted that as of June 2022, the government of Aragon increased the number of Forestalia files awarded to Vea Qualitas. "And we continue to work" with them, Lobera said Tuesday.

This Thursday, but before knowing this information, the president of Aragon, Javier Lambán, said that "if it were verified" that any of the consultants that evaluated for his Government the renewable energy projects was both judge and party, for working for one of the companies that evaluated, he himself "would go to the Prosecutor's Office".

The doubts about the Aragonese Institute of Environmental Management "are interested, with a very clear electoral nuance, and no one has demonstrated a single irregularity," Lambán stressed. "So far we are talking about suspicions and value judgments," he said.

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