The recipient of the letters of recommendation in favor of Barrabés points to a Government position

Under the mandate of Cierco, who directed this public company dependent on the Ministry of Economy until May 2021 and testified this Thursday in the investigation commission into the corruption cases surrounding both the Executive and Sánchez’s entourage, hirings valued at more than ten million euros with entities of the businessman who is the beneficiary of the scheme. Despite this, he maintained that he was unaware of the letters and that it was not he who changed the evaluation criteria during the bidding, but rather Lacambra later.

Cierco has admitted to having signed the contract specifications for subsequent submission to the board of directors of Red.es, but guaranteed that it was the company’s general director of Digital Economy, Luis Prieto, still in office, who was in charge of preparing them. The contracting of files was “exemplary”, he said, and added that to this day he has not seen the letters. Nor did “not a single comma” of the documents be redacted, he assured. What’s more, according to Cierco’s version, at the time he left his position at Red.es for personal reasons, the files were not even resolved, so he had “absolutely zero knowledge.”

«With the socialist Government, Mr. Barrabés either competes recommended and wins, or he does not appear. “He never loses,” the senator questioned him. PP Gerardo Camps, to which Cierco replied that the businessman also received awards during the PP era.

Cierco has also acknowledged knowing Barrabés for almost twenty years because being in the world of technology and not knowing him, he compared, “is like being in the world of football and not knowing Raúl González Blanco.” What he has not explained is how he got to him: “Maybe I found him at an event…”. Despite initially admitting that he had not maintained “any” relationship with the businessman as director of Red.es, he later rectified and acknowledged having seen him “once” during a visit to a technological hub managed by the businessman. “Seeing people once is not having a relationship,” Cierco argued.

He does know Sánchez and Gómez. But only, according to him, “because they are public figures.” The former socialist councilor of the Pozuelo de Alarcón City Council (Madrid) also appears in images taken at party events alongside the head of the Executive. In addition, Gómez was the speaker at an Atrevia Global conference when Cierco ran a foundation for this company. Asked by the PP about why he promoted her on social networks, he stated that he also ‘reposts’ “Lamine Yamal when he scores a goal.”

The PSOE strategy

The PSOE’s strategy has consisted of defending that knowing Barrabés “is not proof of anything”, since the businessman was a speaker at a convention in January 2019, under the title ‘Spain in freedom’, in the Pablo Casado era. in which the former presidents José María Aznar and Mariano Rajoy participated, as well as the then president of the Xunta de Galicia and current leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo.

“The mentality of the PP is that if someone knows you and hires you, it is more suspicious,” denounced the socialist senator José Hila, recalling that “the Madrid City Council tender also included those letters of expression of interest to Barrabés.” «If one institution is bad, they all are. After six months, it is very clear that this is an accusation commission, not an investigation,” he concluded.

Sociedad Innova Next SLU, owned by Barrabés, was also the beneficiary in 2021 of a public award by the Madrid City Council, already in the hands of José Luis Martínez-Almeida, valued at almost 1,800,000 euros for the entity to provide services to support the management of the General Directorate of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Hila explained.

The files were processed “normally”, the letters of expression of interest are “common in the public administration”, knowing Barrabés and contracting with him “is not a crime” and his obligation as general director of Red.es that formed Part of the board of directors was to “process what is raised by the hiring table.” “Not doing so is prevaricating,” the socialist senator concluded.