The Ministry of Transport of Óscar Puente has examined all the contracts for works on railway and high-speed structures placed under suspicion by Víctor de Aldama and has reached a conclusion: “No processing has resulted in either the confirmation or even the suspicion of some favored treatment or irregular actions.” This is a first report from the railway manager ADIF, to which elDiario.es has had access, and which the department has sent to the Supreme Court after the businessman stated that the ‘Koldo case’ plot had rigged some of these awards in exchange of commissions, providing several sheets of the 2021 General State Budgets with underlined headings.
The analysis carried out by the Ministry covers 373 contracts from both ADIF and its High Speed division. A second report is pending on the contracts related to road works also put under suspicion by Aldama. In the case of railway contracts, ADIF has cross-checked the data of these awards with the companies mentioned by Aldama or by the media that have reported on the case, putting the magnifying glass on seven contracting files. And in none of them, the report explains forcefully, have any signs of manipulation or favored treatment of a company been found.
The railway manager understands that “it has been proven in a reasoned manner” that none of these processing or management processes have resulted “either in the confirmation or even in the suspicion” of “some favored treatment or irregular action.” Neither in the awards nor in the modified ones, many of them made downwards.
Thus, the document highlights, for example, that in one of the contracts – relating to a Madrid-Galicia high-speed section – a modification of 70,863.46 euros was made below the award amount. In another case – in this case, the north-northwest corridor – the contract was terminated due to non-compliance by the successful bidder and Adif had to be compensated with more than half a million euros. And another was awarded by auction, a procedure that has the price as the only determining factor.
The 29-page report highlights the “extraordinary generality” of the elements that are underlined in the documents provided by the supposed contractor. Sources from the department explain that these highlights include, sometimes, entire high-speed corridors that cover hundreds of contracts for hundreds of companies for very different reasons: from the engineering itself for drafting the construction projects to consulting, civil works, all types of facilities and supplies or auxiliary services. Furthermore, it highlights that in three of these highlighted denominations there has not even been a tender for any contract or file during the period studied, between the months of June 2018 and July 2021.
The seven processes analyzed after screening, after crossing the companies mentioned by the accused with all those contracts, have not cast a shadow of suspicion: “Everything previously stated indicates the absence of favored treatment or any arbitrariness,” the conclusions of all of them state. they.
The written confession of Víctor de Aldama, with the 37 pages that he provided to the Supreme Court, also pointed to the company Áridos Anfersa, which supposedly “hired a direct relative of Don Koldo for the company.” This ADIF report also analyzes the public contracts for the supply and transportation of ballast for the Madrid-Seville line and several stations in the province of Seville, explaining that there was no margin to irregularly benefit the company for doing favors for Koldo García: there was only an award criterion, which was the price.
The development of these contracts, ADIF adds, does not invite us to think about favorable treatment either. One of the files was resolved because the material provided by the company was not “suitable” and the successful bidder even lost the guarantee. The second contract was not executed. All of this, the report concludes, indicates “the evident lack of any singularity that implies favored treatment or arbitrariness in its development.”
Aldama’s confession
The Koldo case, originally baptized as operation Delorme, was born in a court of the National Court to find out if several companies had obtained million-dollar public contracts during the pandemic to supply medical supplies, and if they did so thanks to their contacts with senior officials related to the Ministry of Transportation: from the minister José Luis Ábalos himself to his right hand man, Koldo García. The company that ended up taking 53 million in these awards was Soluciones de Gestión, linked to businessman Víctor de Aldama, until then known for being president of the Zamora Football Club.
The case always surrounded the figure of Ábalos as an alleged link of the plot with the public administration and the large mask contracts, but it was not until last October when the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard confirmed with a report his accusation by the Supreme Court. At the end of November came Víctor de Aldama’s two-hour confession at the National Court, which not only earned him his freedom but also expanded the horizon of accusations against Ábalos.
Among all kinds of statements, some related to the cause and others without providing any evidence beyond his word, the businessman stated that he agreed on a series of commissions for the then minister in exchange for rigged awards of million-dollar highway works. In his 37-page document submitted to the Supreme Court, Víctor de Aldama included several pages taken from the 2021 General Budgets referring to more than 100 works on roads and train tracks throughout the country.
With some of these works underlined in pink and others in green, although not by him, the businessman stated before the judge that it was a way of knowing which works had already been previously awarded in favor of commission-paying companies, and which could reach be. In his statement as a defendant this Thursday, Ábalos denied the existence of these commissions.
Various reports and audits
The report that the Ministry of Transportation has now provided to the Supreme Court on these contracts is not the first public statement by Óscar Puente that questions these statements after examining the awards that Víctor de Aldama has placed under suspicion. The first was a thread on your official X account in which he stated that, of the seven works indicated by the businessman, only one corresponded to the Ábalos period and that, in any case, “nothing irregular has been observed in the contracting file.”
A matter to which he referred again this week from the plenary session of the Congress of Deputies, this time to analyze the 37 contracts indicated by Aldama, with and without underlining. “That paper doesn’t make the slightest sense, he did it with the intention of confusing or he caught it on some table,” he said to explain that only six of those contracts correspond to Ábalos’ stage and that almost twenty of them were still without bidding. Others, he added, are from the time of Ana Pastor and the PP at the head of the Ministry.
Previously, another report from the Ministry under Puente’s mandate had been provided to the National Court: an audit delivered at the end of August that questioned the actions of the Ábalos team in the million-dollar purchases of masks from companies in the plot, which originally involved the core of the Koldo case. In parallel, two senior officials accused by the judge investigating the case were also dismissed.
The case has progressed faster in recent weeks in the Supreme Court than in the National Court. Judge Leopoldo Puente called Ábalos to testify voluntarily, who appeared this Thursday to deny having received any commission, and next week it will be the turn of Víctor de Aldama and Koldo García, Ábalos’ former advisor in the Ministry.
Another part of Aldama’s confession included various accusations against other members of the Government, such as Ángel Víctor Torres or the socialist leader Santos Cerdán, of having been part of the network of commissions, although without presenting more evidence than his word and sending screenshots of his own. phone book. For the moment, the Supreme Court judge has rejected the businessman’s offer to decrypt his phone to obtain the messages from those alleged contacts and Aldama himself has qualified, for example, his accusations against Torres of having rented an apartment in Madrid for his use. staff.
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