The doctor Marciano Gómez was appointed Minister of Health of the Valencian Government of the PP and Vox on July 19. Just eight days before, Gómez had ceased as sole administrator of the consulting firm Initiatives Médicas y Farmacéuticas SL, a company specialized in the health sector that also included his two children and his wife, who currently continues as attorney, in addition to José Alberto Domínguez. Carabantes, doctor in the mental health clinical area of the La Fe Hospital in Valencia. The latter and the minister’s wife also coincided in the firm Initiatives and Marketing Sociosanitario SL, which expired in 2018. The current Minister of Health, according to sources from his department, did not need compatibility as he did not have exclusive dedication to his position at the hospital. The Faith of Valencia.
Marciano Gómez’s business adventure began shortly after his departure from the Ministry of Health, where he was a senior official and piloted the privatization process during the governments of the popular Eduardo Zaplana, José Luis Olivas and Francisco Camps.
The consulting firms were established on January 11, 2005, shortly after his time as a senior PP official. The only company that is still active —Iniciativas Médicas y Farmacéuticas SL— declared in 2008 an initial net worth of 399,863 euros. In its latest accounts deposited with the Commercial Registry, corresponding to the financial year 2017 and signed by Marciano Gómez, the firm’s net worth skyrockets to 1.9 million euros. The company is dedicated to market research and does not have salaried personnel.
The two companies of the PP councilor, as elDiario.es has revealed, made some peculiar payments to firms investigated in the framework of the ‘Osvaldos case’, a corruption plot supposedly led by Sergio Blasco, former manager of the Valencia Provincial Hospital and nephew of the former PP councilor convicted for the diversion of funds from the Valencian cooperation, which was made with 35 million euros in public awards. The current Minister of Health was summoned to testify before the investigating judge of the case (according to sources from the Ministry of Health, as a witness) after being detected by investigators from the Economic and Fiscal Crime Unit (UDEF) of the National Police two suspicious payments to instrumental companies of the plot.
Thus, Medicinas y Farmacéuticas SL paid 20,000 euros to Vamont Consulting SL, a key company in the plot used for the construction of two private hospitals in Peru. The company involved in the plot paid, among other expenses, an eye-catching “round trip in one day” for Sergio Blasco and his brother to Panama.
On the other hand, Initiatives and Marketing Sociosanitario SL paid 17,400 euros to Corporación Sanitaria del Mediterráneo SL, a company whose shareholder was Sergio Blasco’s brother and which paid for several trips abroad for the former manager of the Provincial Hospital and other members of the plot. and even a Mercedes M Class vehicle and a pass for the VIP box at the Valencia Basquet stadium for two seasons, among other expenses.
The investigator of the case, head of the Investigative Court number six of Valencia, did not seem too convinced with Marciano Gómez’s explanations about the payments. And the current Minister of Health paid a total of 37,400 euros to the firms in the scheme “without any justification”, according to the indictment. Gómez declared that he made the payments “at the direction of Sergio Blasco” and that he “did not know anything” about the companies. He also specified that it was “some pages” with information about “some hospitals in Peru that Sergio himself gave him.”
Marciano Gómez only provided the judge with the invoices
A spokesperson for the Department of Health indicated, when asked by this newspaper, that the councilor “proved that it had been paid in exchange for a service that had been provided.” However, the investigating judge recalls that the consultancy on “supposed projects in Latin America” had “no documentary justification whatsoever.” Furthermore, the order abounds, the payments coincide “in amount and dates” with the transfers from Vamont Consulting SL to Corporación Sociosanitaria del Mediterráneo, the firm that paid the private expenses of Sergio Blasco and his family.
Although the current Health Minister was not investigated or prosecuted in the case, the judge does not believe Marciano Gómez’s version at all. For the payments of the two consultancies of the PP politician, “there is no documentation that accredits the work or services provided that justifies the payments made, only the invoices that justify the payments appear as documentation,” indicates the judge.
The justification of the payment to Corporación Sociosanitaria del Mediterráneo (17,400 euros, for “advice and intermediation in the Peruvian pharmaceutical market”) only includes a report “without a contract”. Both companies in the plot (one managed by a brother of Sergio Blasco and the other by a childhood friend and husband of a director of the Valencia General Hospital foundation) had no real activity, becoming simple front companies for the plot.
Compromís has requested the appearance in the Valencian Courts of the Minister of Health to explain the payments to the companies in the ‘Osvaldos case’ plot. An appearance that adds to his more than probable statement, as a witness, in the next trial in which Sergio Blasco will sit on the bench, accused of the alleged crimes of embezzlement, fraud against the administration, influence peddling, prevarication and bribery.
#consultancy #Health #Minister #Valencian #Government #payments #plot #million #net #worth
