Photo: Google

By KELIN DILLON

The Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) reportedly gave out more than 1.1 billion pesos to a ghost company through four contracts, purports the Superior Audit of the Federation (ASF).

Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity (MCCI) previously flagged the IMSS as one of the main federal institutes to issue contracts to newly created or ghost companies.

The IMSS allegedly contracted PM Soluciones Group for the “application life cycle professional computing service” and “operational continuity and software development” until 2024; however, the ASF’s audit found the IMSS had no need for the supposed “computer services” in question.

The company’s first contract was granted for 245.5 million pesos in October 2021, which was followed by three additional contracts awarded across six days in 2022 to the tune of 858 million pesos.

The ASF’s suspicion of the company’s legitimacy arose as PM Soluciones and PM Soluciones Group remain unregistered with the Public Registry of Commerce and its various contracts were granted to different ghost addresses – one of which is a house for rent and another of which is a floor of a building that’s allegedly empty.

As a result, the ASF has requested that the IMSS investigate and sanction PM Soluciones Group as it failed to prove “the execution of the services” it was contracted for.

This isn’t PM Soluciones Group’s only suspicious federal contract; the alleged ghost company was also awarded a 492 million contract for “technical services” by the National Commission for Physical Culture and Sports (Conade) earlier this year.