The brawl between socialists and popular groups over investigations into mask contracts promises new episodes. This Monday, the PSOE summoned the president of the Balearic Islands, the popular Marga Prohens, to the congressional investigative commission, in an attempt to demonstrate that she allowed the claim of the Executive of her predecessor, the socialist Francina Armengol, to the company of the Koldo plot to lapse. to return 2.6 million euros. The PP counterattacked by announcing that next week it will bring Armengol, now president of Congress, to the committee that controls the Senate, whom it accuses of lying during the testimony she gave in the lower house on the 13th.
Prohens arrived wrapped in a permanent smile, greeted the socialist deputies very effusively and, without abandoning her smiling gesture for a second, fired her first words: “I am very aware that I am here because of the maneuvers of confusion, distraction and mud that the PSOE has launched.” The Balearic president argued that her Government gave up going ahead with the claim of the Armengol Executive due to its “weakness” and because it did not ask for the full return of the 3.7 million paid for the purchase of masks from the company Soluciones de Gestión, which recommended the former advisor to the Ministry of Transportation Koldo García. But Prohens denied that the file has expired and alleged that the PP has presented two new claims for the total amount. “I cannot be the president of a Government that gives a million euros to a corrupt plot,” she stated.
The investigative commission lived an intense day, with morning and afternoon sessions, beginning with the general director of the Balearic health service, the also popular Javier Ureña, who detailed the evolution of the case after PP assumed the Government, in July 2023. At that time, almost three years late, the previous Administration had demanded a refund of 2.6 million from the company, since the masks were of a lower quality than promised. Ureña admitted that on August 24 he signed a resolution assuming the actions of his predecessors, which until then he was unaware of because, as he said, no one warned him or his superiors about the matter regarding the transfer of powers. The company presented allegations and even went to Mallorca to inspect the warehouse where the masks were. The autonomous Government did not offer any type of response until the case broke out on February 21 when the arrests ordered by the National Court became known. It was then that he decided to present two new claims with a different argument: that the corporate purpose of the company did not correspond to the nature of the contract, the same thing that happened with thousands of others signed in the worst of the pandemic by Administrations of all colors.
The National Court has noted that the claim has expired because the deadline to resolve it was three months. Prohens, on the other hand, uses a report from his Consell Consultiu that places them at eight. The socialist deputy Juan Antonio González tried to corner the president by resorting to judicial punctures, in which the members of the plot boast that they have managed to stop the new Balearic Government. Prohens repeatedly and with great energy denied that anyone from that company had pressured her: “I deny it before you and wherever necessary.” The same thing happened with Ureña. The deputy of Més, integrated into Sumar, Vicenç Vidal, had blurted out: “Either there was an instruction or negligence, because only when the scandal breaks do they get their act together.” The senior official replied: “No pressure, no advice, no comments.”
Prohens cast all kinds of suspicions on Armengol. The former president, in her appearance on the 13th, had acknowledged that she had spoken on occasion with Koldo García, in his capacity as advisor to former Minister José Luis Ábalos, but never about purchasing masks. Her successor revealed this Monday that the official records include a visit on March 26, 2021 by Ábalos to Mallorca to supervise some works and sign agreements with the Balearic Government. According to Prohens, Armengol and the minister held a private meeting. Among Ábalos’s companions was—as always at that time—his advisor Koldo García. As soon as he heard it, the popular deputy José Vicente Marí launched into it with enthusiasm:
—That is, Koldo like Pedro for his house.
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Vox deputy Jorge Campos returned to the matter and asked Prohens if the private meeting had taken place at the headquarters of the autonomous government. The president could not say for sure, although she said that she suspects so. She, too, could not corroborate that the minister’s advisor was present at the interview, but Campos had already touched the moral fiber:
—In other words, Mrs. Armengol was meeting at the headquarters of the Balearic Government with Mr. Ábalos and Mr. Koldo. It’s a real scandal!
That meeting, after a perfectly public event, which the media reported and the Balearic Government itself, between an autonomous president and a Minister of Transport also scandalized Elías Bendodo. After finishing the session, the PP coordinator went out to meet the journalists to denounce that this is proof that Armengol lied in Congress. “And that is a crime,” he added.
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