The general secretary of the Presidency of the Xunta, about the contracts with her brother: “There is nothing to hide”

The General Secretary of the Presidency, Beatriz Cuíña, defends that “there is nothing to hide” about minor contracts in the Xunta de Galicia. He did it in Parliament, in the commission in which he presented the budgets that depend on his department and after indirect criticism – because they did not directly cite either the company or the fact that it is owned by Cuíña’s brother – from the opposition to the accumulation of contracts hand-picked to Joaquín Cuíña’s company. Between 2018 and mid-2024, Gallaecia de Patentes y Marcas received 272 contracts worth 780,000 euros from the Galician autonomous administration.

“Regarding minor contracting, I can assure that the different contracting bodies autonomously contract the provision of services without direct or indirect intervention,” said Beatriz Cuíña in her closing turn. “It is done in accordance with the regulations; “Everything is published, nothing is hidden because there is nothing to hide,” he insisted. In his speech, the BNG spokesperson in the debate, Daniel Pérez, mentioned the former president of the Xunta and current leader of the Spanish PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, of whom he said that, with his jump to Madrid, he realized that the state media “were not going to be so understanding” with the Galician Government’s contracts with companies in which people from their environment work – such as the case of Eulen, where her sister is the director for the northwest – or with which a former senior position “forgets” about his obligation to submit a declaration of assets upon leaving office. He made reference, without mentioning her, to Mar Sánchez Sierra, Feijóo’s right-hand man. He also spoke about the information, also published by elDiario.es, about the Xunta’s contracts with Joaquín Cuíña’s company.

Less specific was the PSdeG deputy Patricia Iglesias, who demanded in her interventions a greater effort at transparency in the Xunta, specifically in the platform and registration of contracts and, above all, in the case of minor contracts. There are, he stressed, tools to facilitate consultation and allow effective control. Measures can also be taken to “avoid abuses of possible splitting of contracts” and prevent the accumulation of hit-and-miss orders when there are “indications” of family connections between senior officials and company officials, he said.

For the PPdeG parliamentary spokesperson, Alberto Pazos, Daniel Pérez’s words about minor contracts are equivalent to “throwing the stone and hiding your hand.” “They are perfectly legal,” he replied. It upset him that he talked about Mar Sánchez, although without quoting her: “A little bit of elegance. It refers to people who are not here today. [y lo hace] falsifying reality.” She insisted that she did present the declaration of assets upon her departure, but there was an oversight in the publication that, in any case, she considered corrected with the document she submitted upon entering as a deputy in Congress. “The legality of that person’s assets is proven,” he defended.

Beatriz Cuíña, for her part, assured that the Xunta has “a system of institutional integrity that collaborates and guides all departments”, in which she assured that there are plans to prevent fraud in contracting in force. If there are “inaccuracies” in the information published on the transparency platform, he said, “they must be minimal.” The General Secretary of the Presidency outlined some of the items that depend on the department and cited that in 2025 the forecast is to make transfers to the Radio and Television Corporation of Galicia (CRTVG) of 127.2 million euros.

The mention of public media earned the opposition the opportunity to insist on the withdrawal of the draft media law that will reinforce the political control of the PP. “It reduces journalistic independence to limits never seen before,” said socialist Patricia Iglesias. Daniel Pérez accused the PP of wanting “absolute control” to put the CRTVG at its service as “an authentic propaganda terminal.” The spokesperson for Democracia Ourensana, Armando Ojea, also made a reference to the General Secretariat of Media: “Let’s hope it doesn’t end up being propaganda.”