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This week, the GCBA will decide who will be awarded the multi-million dollar deal. The project plans to incorporate vegetation in approximately 10 blocks on Tucumán Street and 25 de Mayo Avenue.
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Another controversial tender from Macri: the envelopes are opened for a green street that will cost more than $7.5 billion
A few days ago, the Executive under Jorge Macri published a new multimillion-dollar tender to transform the perimeter of Tucumán Street between Carlos Pellegrini and Av. Leandro N. Alem and 25 de Mayo Street between Av. Córdoba and Tucumán into a “green street”. According to the official version, this initiative has as its main objective to promote the active use of public space by the community. This week, the City opens the envelopes with the proposals of the different companies that want to participate and receive more than 7.5 billion pesos.
The tendering of public works in the Buenos Aires district always generates controversy. Even more so when different sectors have been denouncing for years that the GCBA leaves the works in very few hands and does not allow the entry of new companies. A situation that raises doubts about the transparency of public tenders in CABA.
Details of the tender
Added to the long list of multi-million dollar tenders is the one known as “Calle Verde Tucumán” which, according to the official version, seeks to add green and drainage spaces, improve environmental quality and promote new uses. This depaving project encourages Buenos Aires to transform itself into a carbon neutral, resilient and inclusive city.
The envelopes to find out which companies are applying to participate in the acquisition of this project will be opened next Thursday, October 10. On that day, the offers will be announced and then the Executive will pre-award the tender to some of the participating firms that will receive the sum of $7,549,853,403.73.
The GCBA pre-awarded a multimillion-dollar tender for “comprehensive maintenance” of the Ecopark to a cleaning company
The project proposes: improving pedestrian safety by reducing the surface area for vehicles and increasing the space for people. Allocating spaces for loading, unloading, boarding and disembarking passengers. Adding rest areas with street furniture and pedestrian lighting. Single and double benches with armrests will be included in the new rest areas, accompanied by streetlights for pedestrian lighting that will complement the existing street lighting.
In this sense, it
also seeks to incorporate shrub vegetation and trees; tree specimens of the jacaranda and photinia species will be included, as well as the species dietes bicolor and salvia guaranítica as a shrub layer. The descriptive report states the following: “It should be noted that there is no presence of any type of vegetation in the 10 blocks of extension.”
Million-dollar projects in a few hands
In February of this year, the Buenos Aires City Government pre-awarded a million-dollar project in the subway to a company that lacks experience in the sector, but that has good ties and close relations with Macri. At that time, Tiempo revealed that the City gave a public tender to carry out work at the Pasteur – AMIA station, for more than $1.4 billion, to the firm Bencen Constructora SRL. In this case, only three private companies submitted a tender issued by Subterráneos de Buenos Aires (SBASE), a company of the Buenos Aires City Government that manages the entire subway network through a concession with the private company Emova. According to the document published in the Official Gazette, the works were pre-awarded to Bencen Construcciones because it was the company with the most economical offer. The firms that were rejected were UTEs SES-Construere and LX Argentina-Xapor, which had several projects in the subway network under their charge.
The curious thing about this pre-award is that the company Bencen has no history of works in the subway or experience in the sector. And the most striking thing is that it is the first tender of SBASE during the government of Jorge Macri, who recently appointed his new authorities to head the company.
Although it may not mean anything concrete, it is striking that the construction company has its headquarters in Olivos, Vicente López District (Avenida Maipú 2649), more precisely next to the municipal building (Av. Maipú 2609), which at that time was commanded by Mauricio Macris cousin.
But there is not only business with the PRO in CABA. In June 2023, by Ordinance No. 3157 dated June 13, 2023, the mayor of the Lobos district, Jorge Etcheverry (JxC), awarded Bencen Construcciones SRL, "Public Tender No. 10/2023 “Laguna de Lobos Pavement”, for a total of $73,500,000.
Bencen Construcciones is a company that has grown exponentially in recent years, after several tenders and direct contracts from the Buenos Aires government. It was created in August 2012 with its address in Caballito (Rivadavia 5126, 12th floor, apartment 8) and two managing partners: Juan Pablo Benavides and Analía Mariel Centonze. The name of the company brings together the first three letters of each surname: BenCen.
In 2017, after Centonze resigned, Benavides became the sole manager and moved his address to San Nicolás 4029, in the Villa Devoto neighborhood and later the central offices to the Vicente López district.
The company does business with the PRO of CABA and other Macri supporters. Its central offices are next to the Municipal Palace of Vicente López. In the last few hours it justified the fact by responding to a request for information approved by the Legislature.
In September of this year, Jorge Macri handed over the maintenance of 42 historic buildings of the Buenos Aires Ecopark to a company that lacks experience. They also claim that the National Commission of Historic Monuments should have been involved in this matter, since the former Zoological Garden is part of the national heritage.
This is the company LX ARGENTINA SA that would be the creditor of "a total amount of SIX THOUSAND SEVEN HUNDRED FOURTEEN MILLION TWO HUNDRED SIXTY-FOUR THOUSAND NINE HUNDRED SIXTY PESOS WITH 00/100 ($6,714,264,960.00.-), as its offer is the most convenient for the purposes pursued by the GCABA," says the publication distributed in the BO of CABA.
"It is a tender for maintenance, but also for the improvement of the facilities of the former Zoological Garden, and so a door is opened with the word improvement and with the interpretation that both the city government and the company awarded this tender can make of it, a door is opened for anything to happen and it is a company whose specialization is office cleaning," Patricio Cabrera, a lawyer who is a member of the Civil Association Basta de Demoler, told Tiempo at the time. |
