Artesolar Lighting, in which Tomás Díaz is manager, has received finger contracts worth 113,179 euros since his sister is in the Executive
The award of more than 1.5 million euros for the purchase of masks in China to a company with which the brother of the president of Madrid collaborated is not the first competition in the Community that is awarded by hand to a firm related to Tomas Diaz Ayuso. Since the arrival of Isabel Díaz Ayuso to positions of responsibility in the regional Executive, different regional government agencies have awarded up to 18 hand-picked contracts worth 113,179 euros to Artesolar, a Chinese-owned lighting firm in which the brother of the Head of Government works as Project Development Manager, according to her professional profile on the networks.
All the contracts with which Artesolar has benefited, according to what appears on the Transparency portal, are minor (18,000 or 15,000 euros, depending on the legislation at the time), so they were made without the need for public tender.
The awards to the lighting firm by the Community began in October 2017, just days after Isabel Díaz Ayuso became Deputy Minister of the Presidency and Justice, and ended in March 2020, just shortly before the regional government close the controversial mask contract. Eight of the 18 contracts are with Ayuso as Deputy Minister and the other ten as president, that is, as of August 2019.
The awardees were almost always the Ministry of Health (Ramón y Cajal Hospital in most cases) and the Canal de Isabel II, and not the Government Council, so, the regional Executive maintains, Isabel Díaz Ayuso did not intervene at no time, he did not have to abstain and the law of incompatibilities of high positions is not applicable, which prohibits awards to direct relatives.
The contract with the highest amount was 17,794 euros for “supply of luminaires”, very close to the limit of 18,000 that until March 2018 set the cost of minor contracts that did not require competition. This award was approved on October 17, 2017 by the Ministry of the Presidency and Justice, the department where Isabel Díaz Ayuso had just been released as deputy minister less than a month before, on September 26, 2017. Although Artesolar had been founded in 2010 , it was not until the arrival of Ayuso to positions of great relevance in the regional Executive that he began to work for the Community of Madrid.
According to sources from the Puerta del Sol headquarters, the Ministry of the Presidency was able to award Artesolar without incurring in incompatibilities because his brother did not hold any official position in that company at that time.