The content of the audit commissioned in February – after the investigation of the Koldo case—, The report by the Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Óscar Puente, in Puertos del Estado and Adif to clarify the multimillion-dollar purchase of masks in 2020 has been published this Friday. And after revealing part of its conclusions, which confirm “administrative” irregularities, Puente has announced the dismissal of two senior officials of his department accused of the Koldo case: Undersecretary of State, Jesús Manuel Gómez, and Adif’s chief of staff, Michaux Miranda. The socialist leader has outlined part of the report and announced the dismissals during his appearance in the Senate, held at the request of the PP, with a majority in the Upper House. In it, the minister has been questioned about the problems in the railway network and the alleged corruption plot in which the awarding of a series of contracts for masks in the midst of the pandemic is being investigated and which affects Koldo García, former advisor to the then socialist Minister of Transport, José Luis Ábalos.
The dismissal of the two senior officials has occurred after examining the conclusions of the audit. “Given the procedural situation in which they find themselves, I will allow myself not to make an assessment of that decision, limiting myself to pointing out that the facts and conclusions drawn from the audit carried out produce a loss of confidence that leads to the decision that I have just communicated to you,” Puente explained during his speech, as “assumption of responsibility” in the administrative deficiencies noted in the processes of awarding contracts for the purchase of masks from the company Soluciones de Gestión, the epicentre of the investigation of the Koldo case“I do not intend to prejudge or make any kind of assessment on issues that only concern the courts of justice. My decision is based exclusively on administrative aspects that have been clearly revealed in the audit,” the minister added.
On July 29, National Court judge Ismael Moreno agreed to charge the two senior officials of the Ministry of Transport in the Koldo caseIn his ruling, the magistrate summoned the Undersecretary of Transport, Jesús Manuel Gómez, to testify on September 9 and the General Director of Human Resources at Adif, Michaux Miranda, on the 11th of the same month, both of whom are under investigation.
The Puertos del Estado entity was authorized to obtain eight million masks in the first days of the state of alarm caused by the pandemic, activated on March 14, 2020. It was through a ministerial order signed on March 20 under the lifting of a good part of the filters that govern public contracting for a matter of emergency. A fragment of the audit revealed by Puente this Friday, during his appearance in the Senate, refers to said purchase.
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“The initial order to acquire four million masks by this Ministry, in response to the needs it had, underwent an upward variation in a very short period of time, barely 38 minutes between one order and another, going from four to eight million masks.” This modification —says the report in this regard— “does not meet the criteria required in a procedure of these characteristics” because it is considered “not to adequately resolve the justification of the scope, number of masks to be acquired, of the emergency.”
The study also found that “the eight million masks coincide with the offer from the company Soluciones de Gestión y Apoyo a Empresas SL”. The businessmen Juan Carlos Cueto and Víctor de Aldama were allegedly behind this company, and it was used, according to the investigators, in the plot allegedly orchestrated by García Izaguirre to obtain the awarding of mask contracts from the Public Administrations. To do so, the businessmen would have paid commissions to the former advisor of the then Minister Ábalos, who “provided” the information on the concessions.
Shortly after the Senate announced the dismissals of the two senior officials, the Popular Party accused Puente of assuming the “corruption” of his Ministry with this decision. “Why did he dismiss them now and not a month ago? So that they can have this time to destroy evidence?”, sources from the PP leadership asked in a statement. “They must have said something to Puente, they must have found something in this time, so that what was previously support for his senior officials is now a dismissal,” the Popular Party executive censured.
In parallel, and from the Upper House, the PP senator, Fernando Martínez-Maíllo, has attacked the minister during his turn to speak. “There is a case of corruption in this Government, yes. Do you have to assume political responsibilities beyond an undersecretary? Yes. We will continue to ask that you assume political responsibilities at the highest level because we were right,” Martínez-Maíllo has asserted. “What you have just stated with the Report of the General Inspection of Services is that the tender for Puertos del Estado was a fraud,” added his colleague, the popular senator Luis Santamaría. “You have acknowledged corruption and, therefore, the tender for Adif, Armengol, Ángel Víctor Torres and Marlaska exactly the same,” he asserted.
Following the interventions of the other senators who participated in the hearing, Puente reiterated: “I am not removing them because they are under investigation. I am removing them because, in light of key administrative aspects, issues have arisen that have made me lose confidence.”
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