The Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility has dismissed its senior officer, Alejandro de las Alas-Pumariño, who in 2020 was responsible for that area that was in charge of controlling the masks acquired during the pandemic that were stored at the ministerial headquarters and that In addition, he was responsible for both security – access controls – and the registration of people.
It so happens that the audit report commissioned by Minister Óscar Puente on those contracts for the acquisition of masks in a pandemic, which are the subject of investigation in the ‘Koldo case’, focused on “the lack of initial control” about those batches of masks at the Ministry.
Ministerial sources consulted by Europa Press confirm that the dismissal of De las Alas-Pumariño occurred on December 12, although they deny knowing the reasons for it and doubt that it is related to this possible lack of control over the acquired material.
However, the audit report, to which this news agency had access, was categorical in highlighting this lack of control and gave as an example the role played by Koldo García, then advisor to former minister José Luis Ábalos, who, according to the document, “direct instructions at the foot of the runway to the distribution company on the destination of the first masks that arrived in Barajas (instructions that in any case are reserved for the contracting body).”
“In fact, he took masks (25,000) to the Ministry, which he kept and subsequently removed, without any record being left beyond the informal knowledge of the Chief Officer and the then Director General of Organization and Inspection (DGOI),” recalled the audit report that highlighted that at this time “238,840 masks are kept in the Ministry’s warehouses, and in an existing warehouse in Azuqueca de Henares some 206,000 masks which, in economic terms, represent 1,128,559 euros.”
That report detailed that De las Alas-Pumariño, when interviewed by the auditors, indicated that, from the first flight that landed with material in the early morning of March 28, 2020, the Ministry received a batch of 10,000 masks, of which, Although there is no receipt record, there is data on its subsequent distribution within the department.
Both he and the DGOI and the head of the Internal Regime Service also agreed to indicate that two pallets with about 25,000 masks were taken to the Ministry, for which there is also no record of receipt. “This lot, all those interviewed indicate, was guarded by the then advisor to the minister – Koldo García – and by the second lieutenant of the Civil Guard under lock and key in a Ministry warehouse, and removed by them at a later time, without There is also no documentation of the withdrawal, although there is unofficial knowledge from those interviewed.”
That second lieutenant referred to in the report is José Luis Rodríguez, who is also listed as being investigated in the ‘Koldo case’ and who was assigned to the Ministry of Transportation until his retirement. The senior officer and the DGOI told the auditors that the key to the material was in the possession of the civil guard and Koldo García, “and that it was as if the minister did it.”
Access control
The Transport report also recommended, regarding the registration and control of entries at the ministerial headquarters, providing operating protocols “in order to achieve the highest level of objectivity and transparency in any access to the Department’s headquarters and control actions.” of its facilities.”
He understood that in this way “the actions of employees and public authorities are protected, who in the face of possible pressure to act without due rigor (read in the control of entries and exits, especially of people outside the organization, and in the control of the entries and exits of material from any warehouse or facility of said headquarters), will not only have clear and detailed rules on the steps to be followed, but also with a document to be enforced against whoever puts pressure on them to act accordingly. other form or without due rigor.”
In the parliamentary questions recorded by former Minister Ábalos about that report, the focus was on the fact that the Ministry focused on deficiencies in access control and registration of outsiders in the case of the alleged achiever of the ‘Koldo plot’, Víctor de Aldama, but it did not mention the unregistered visits of businessmen that were introduced “repeatedly in 2020 and 2021 by the second lieutenant of the Civil Guard detained in Operation “Delorme.” He also recalled that these events were reported by the security team in 2022.
On the other hand, Ábalos focused on the fact that responsibility for this control and registration of accesses depended on the Chief Official’s Office.
Specifically, in his parliamentary question on September 23, 2024, Ábalos drew attention to the fact that Puente had not clarified responsibilities “in those who are directly responsible for the failure to comply with the protocols for effective control of the reception and dispatch of the masks”, something that he described as a serious breach of the chain of custody.”
The former minister also regretted that the report did not specify who was responsible for the administrative bodies and that it only directed “to transfer and refine a single responsibility for the purchase and distribution of masks to the highest authority of the Ministry of Transport in 2020.”
Other sources consulted by this news agency highlight that, with this dismissal, what Ábalos has maintained about the lack of clarification of responsibilities within the Ministry for the irregularities included in the audit report is supported.
They also detail that the person responsible for controlling the masks was the senior officer, and that however he delegated that responsibility to the second lieutenant of the Civil Guard under investigation. They add to this that there was a lack of control over access to the Ministry’s headquarters and that delivery notes for medical supplies were not made.
Functions of the senior officer
It is worth remembering that, according to the Official State Gazette (BOE), it is the job of the Chief Officer’s Office to “manage the internal regime, including security management, and the general services of the central and peripheral bodies of the Department, which are not attributed to other bodies of the Ministry.”
It is also responsible for “the direction and organization of the general registry, documentation and archive services, as well as the management of the Ministry’s general library and the management and development of documentation services in matters of transportation,” “the programming and management of the acquisition policy of the Department’s material resources” and the “programming and management of the Department’s heritage policy, including construction and conservation works of buildings and facilities whose competence is not assigned to other management centers.”
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