The Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, stated this Friday that he is analyzing the contracts provided by businessman Víctor de Aldama before the Supreme Court – as alleged evidence of political corruption in the so-called ‘Koldo case’ – and that only one of them, of a total of seven, corresponds to the mandate of José Luis Ábalos as Minister of Transportation.
Last Tuesday Ábalos denied having agreed with Aldama on an apartment worth 1.9 million euros in exchange for contracts with construction companies. “That is not my handwriting,” said the former minister, who will testify on December 12 as a defendant before the Supreme Court judge who has assumed part of the case.
Puente made these statements in the traditional groups in the Congress of Deputies during the events celebrating the 46th anniversary of the Constitution and later complemented them through a thread on the social network X (formerly Twitter).
Of the seven contracts that the commissioner of the Koldo case, Víctor de Aldama, delivered this Wednesday in the Supreme Court to support his version, two were not put out to tender and only one was with José Luis Ábalos as minister but “nothing irregular has been observed in the hiring file”, according to the current minister.
“These are the documents that have emerged through the media, of what Víctor de Aldama has presented in Court as accreditation of contracts that were arbitrarily awarded in the general direction of highways to companies that then paid commissions in exchange for those awards. . There are seven works. We are going to analyze one by one to see what signs of truth this information has,” the Minister of Transport began his thread.
In it, Puente analyzes document by document and concludes that “two of the seven works correspond to a period prior to José Luis Abalos. Two correspond to a period after José Luis Abalos as minister. Two were never put to tender. Only one of the seven corresponds to the period of José Luis Abalos, but nothing irregular has been observed in the hiring file.”
The minister explains that this analysis covers exclusively what has emerged through the media. “We have to continue analyzing and delving deeper based on the judicial documentation,” he emphasizes.
However, he considers it “striking” that what Aldama has chosen to highlight in his writing “is discredited so clearly and immediately.”
“What the investigated person provides in court is the investment annex of the General State Budget. As evidence, it lacks the slightest value, since in that annex there are works started before the arrival of the PSOE government, works that were not even put out to tender when Abalos was minister and others that have not even been put out to tender,” he concludes.
Elías Bendodo considers that Puente “teases” citizens
The deputy secretary of Autonomous and Local Coordination and Electoral Analysis, Elías Bendodo, has referred to the publications of the Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility asking him to “not deceive” and “not to kid” citizens.
Bendodo affirms that, in relation to the contracts presented by Víctor de Aldama, “we are not talking about the initial contracts”, but rather about the modifications, “which Ábalos did sign”, as he explained in statements to the press this Saturday from Logroño.
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