Current and former political officials are paraded through the parliamentary investigation commissions on the mask contracts and the script is repeated almost to the millimeter, without them contributing much to continue adding to the political scandal. This Monday it was the turn of Congress to the former officials of the Government of the Canary Islands, a community where, in addition to the one known as the Koldo plot, justice is investigating two other alleged frauds in the acquisition of face masks. The former president of the community and now Minister of Territorial Policy, Ángel Víctor Torres, disassociated himself from all those contracts under suspicion. Both he and his cabinet director, Antonio Olivera, who directed the Canarian Health Service when the pandemic broke out, denied that their three contracts with the company Soluciones de Gestión worth 12.6 million were awarded through the intercession of Koldo García, former advisor. of the Ministry of Transportation and accused of collecting commissions from that firm.
—Did you know Koldo?
The popular Elías Bendodo asked the now Minister Torres the obligatory question, the question that the PP tries to present as the definitive test to know whether or not the person appearing is involved in the plot. The former Canarian president responded bluntly:
—Of course I knew him. He was an advisor to the Minister of Transport.
Bendodo then proclaimed with the triumphant air of someone who feels he has hit the target:
—Three out of three! Illa [Salvador, exministro de Sanidad]Armengol [Francina, expresidenta de Baleares] and now Torres… Everyone knew Koldo!
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Smiles emerged on the socialist benches. Torres was quick to cut short:
—But he was an advisor to the minister! If everyone deals with the ministers’ advisors!… Even the mayors of the PP.
But Bendodo no longer needed more and, as he always does, at the end of the commission he proclaimed to the press the very serious involvement of Torres in the case.
Before the former Canarian president, the former head of its health service had denied any contact with Koldo García and stated that the offer of the masks came to him through Íñigo Rotaeche, one of the owners of Management Solutions. When Vox deputy Carlos Flores asked Torres if it was “reckless” to contract with a company with no ties to the health sector, the former president replied: “What would be reckless would have been to reject an offer at a good price, with the commitment of supply in a few days, in the situation we were in then.” Torres and the current director of his cabinet in the ministry assured that the only incident in the contracts with that company was that a part of the supplies did not correspond to the promised quality. “And the price was reduced by 66%. If there is a plot, that is not done,” the minister emphasized.
Where much more than incidents have emerged is in an issue that broke out before Koldo and that is known in the Canary Islands as the case masks. The socialist government of the archipelago paid four million euros in advance – which did not happen with Management Solutions – to RR7, a car buying and selling company that never supplied the material. The firm brought one million masks from Ethiopia that turned out to be fake and were destroyed by Customs. Another former director of the islands’ health service, Conrado Domínguez, is accused in this case of prevarication and influence peddling.
Both Flores, from Vox, and especially the representative of the Canarian Coalition, Cristina Valido, expanded on this matter. They had to work hard so that Torres ended up acknowledging, somewhat reluctantly, that Domínguez was dismissed due to his involvement in the case. The former president denied that he had any involvement in the contract. “I have never asked for a company to be hired or not hired,” he said. Olivera, his cabinet director, was responsible for health when the supply with RR7 was approved, but stated that all the procedures were carried out by Domínguez. When asked if he had not felt concerned about knowing who was behind the companies that offered masks, he responded: “I was more concerned about saving lives than knowing who was behind it. He did not have that concern or that curiosity.”
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