2024-01-09 06:01:00
It was a month ago: the broadcast, by our colleagues from Het Laatste Nieuws, of a video revealing the speech of a senior official of the FPS Public Health made Minister Frank Vandenbroucke reel, since then summoned to explain himself in Parliament and to initiate an internal audit to try to see things clearly.
As a reminder, his administration is accused of having favored a company – Movianto – in the race for the public market concerning the storage and distribution of vaccines and anti-covid equipment. A choice made in the summer of 2022 to the detriment of the former state service provider, Medista. Who, after contesting this decision with the Council of State (unsuccessfully), therefore called on an economic intelligence company (Black Cube) with a view to extracting, from the senior civil servant but also from an executive Movianto, which looks like confessions of favoritism on the part of the SPF. In question (in particular): the provision to Movianto, through the senior civil servant, of a “good legal expert” responsible for supporting the company in the twists and turns of said public market…
Deloitte, KPMG, PWC, etc. : consultancy costs in Brussels administrations are exploding, the Engagés demand “absolute transparency”
Disturbing complicity
A few days before the broadcast of the famous videos, a letter from Medista addressed to the Prime Minister mentioned these elements. And it appears today that another letter, concerning the same matter, was sent two days earlier to the CEO of Deloitte Belgium, Rolf Driesen. The reason: Deloitte is a flagship partner of the SPF in terms of consultancy (notably when purchasing vaccines and anti-covid equipment), but also on a legal level (it is Deloitte-certified lawyers who defended the federal before the Council of State). An expertise which, according to Medista, led the firm to participate very closely in the development of the contested public contract. And to take up the cause both for the FPS Public Health and for Movianto. The company cites in particular comments from the senior official pinned in one of Black Cube’s videos: she allegedly suggests that the lawyer who defended Movianto at the Council of State in the summer of 2022 was “provided” ( through the FPS Public Health) by… Deloitte Legal. However, it turns out that the lawyer in question has indeed, on several occasions, represented and assisted Deloitte in other separate matters.
Welcoming committee
Above all, Deloitte had set up quite a welcoming committee when Medista’s offer was submitted in the summer of 2022, this letter tells us. According to several exchanges between the FPS Public Health and the company that we were able to consult, at least one legal representative of the firm was actually present on June 2, the day the Medista team went to the FPS Public Health. Two other consultants, indirectly linked to the firm, were also present, according to the letter from Ms. Taybi, the boss of Medista. One of them was probably the head of the FPS Public Health purchasing group in the midst of the Covid crisis, having at the time several Deloitte consultants under his command. A personality with whom relations proved to be execrable throughout the crisis, in particular regarding unpaid invoices by the SPF, according to several email exchanges that we were also able to consult.
A detail which is not one, it is these unpaid invoices which triggered the disclosure of the videos incriminating the senior civil servant: during the (aborted) negotiation between Medista and the FPS Public Health at the end of last November to resolve this dispute, Medista s she said – was hampered by the absence of Dirk Ramaekers, president of the FPS Public Health (with whom an appointment was made). The latter was replaced by… the Deloitte lawyer for the federal government. Who would then have announced to Medista that the requested invoices would remain unpaid.
Influence of consultants: “When you are called upon to replace authority, there is a risk that there will be interference”
Enough to arouse the ire of the company, which ultimately also accuses Deloitte of having helped, indirectly, its competitor to acquire freezers (-80 degrees) necessary for the execution of the contract. How ? Through, again according to Medista… the head of Covid purchasing affiliated with Deloitte. This is, again, not improbable: until the last moment, Movianto did not actually have all the necessary equipment, as L’Avenir revealed in the fall of 2022. Asked about all the accusations made by Medista, Deloitte hides behind “confidentiality of missions” and “professional secrecy”. The same response given to a previous investigation concerning the firm, this time concerning the colossal consultancy fees addressed to Brussels public services.
Febelco, the other invisible actor… on the Medista side
It’s little known, but Medista, a Flemish “small SME”, as it presents itself, has quite a fish among its investors. A certain Olivier Delaere, CEO of Febelco, the number 1 wholesaler-distributor of medicines in Belgium (turnover: more than a billion euros). More than an investor, moreover; a partner, since the latter in fact co-founded Medista, with whom Febelco has established a strategic partnership since 2020, the year in which Medista won (before losing it) the distribution of anti-covid vaccines. At the time, this “passive investor”, as he described himself, praised the “discretion” of the collaboration with the federal government, believing that he worked with the SPF “as one would work with a laboratory”. Not sure that discretion is still required…
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