The former director of Televisora de Hermosillo (Telemax), Daniel Hidalgo Hurtado, was disqualated for 10 years of public service for allegedly having responsibility for the diversion of public resources in the case of The Master Scam.
The disqualification was imposed on January 25 by the Secretariat of the General Contraloria of the State of Sonora, according to a note published on Wednesday by the digital portal Proyecto Puente, directed by journalist Luis Alberto Medina.
The reason for the sanction, as recorded in the Document of the Secretary-General’s Contraloria, is that Telemax signed a collaboration agreement with the Secretariat for Territorial and Urban Development (Sedatu) in April 2016 to carry out a number of services for it. However, Telemax subcontracted with 98.5% of the money it received from Sedatu to third-party companies, which would be a violation of the first article of the federal procurement law, which stipulates that only up to 49% could be outsourced.
After disqualification, Daniel Hidalgo defended his innocence and told Political Animal that is “in total disagreement” with the Decision of the Contraloria. It also noted that it had been bringing an appeal to justice for months now.
For its part, after the publication of the note on the Project Bridge portal, the Contraloria regretted on an information card that the sanction document was made public, noting that its disclosure could cause harm or obstruct the procedure.
The Contraloria card also states that the former Director of Telemax may challenge the process – as he has already done – and that the former employee would still ultimately have the right to go to the Federal Courts.
The agreements identified by the ASF in The Master Scam
It should be recalled that in February 2018 a report was released of the Higher Audit of the Federation (ASF) in which it was stated that in 2016 the Sedatu, led at that time by Rosario Robles – today in pre-trial detention by La Estafa Maestra – defvied 1 billion public resources using public universities and also to state radios and televisions.
Among the state media that would have participated in the diversion was Telemax de Sonora, who, for example, subcontracted with Sedatu money companies such as Publicidad Natnit SA de CV, which was not located in its tax domiciles and that in 2016 it filed a zero income tax return. In other words, he stated as having had no income, even though both Telemax, and the Quintanarroense Social Communication Service, gave him more than 260 million pesos.
Both Telemax and the Quintanarroense Service also outsourced in 2016 the company Agatha Leaders Specialized SA de CV, a company newsletterd as a ghost by the Tax Administration Service (SAT). Both media outlets handed him 164 million of the Sedatu.
Later, in February too, but in 2019, Animal Politics published that Peña Nieto’s government maintained in 2017 the same resource diversion scheme known as The Master Scam, and more than 351 million pesos of public money disappeared in the Sedatu and the Ministry of Agriculture.
According to another audit report on the 2017 Public Account, both units used the Polytechnic University of Tlaxcala, the Campeche Technology, the Cental Higher Technological Institute, and telemax again.
This report stated that Telemax received 40 million pesos from Sedatu for the “development of the design and editing of material in audio, video and social communication graph”, among other services.
However, “it did not provide supporting and supporting documentation of the alleged execution of the work that would cover payments made to subcontracted companies, nor of the project remittance”.
In the case of one of the companies subcontracted by Telemax, it was not found at its tax address; and in the case of a second one, its legal representative stated that it had in turn outsourced to another company, which was also not located by the auditors.
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