The former Secretary General of the State of Ports Álvaro Sánchez Manzanares – dismissed from his position last March – stated this Wednesday in his statement as an investigator before the judge of the National Court in charge of the investigation into the “Koldo case” that he was limited to complying with the “instructions” of the Ministry of Transport, then headed by José Luis Ábalos, to award a contract for masks worth 20 million euros to Soluciones de Gestión, the main company in the field. This was confirmed to elDiario.es by several sources familiar with the content of this statement, which lasted just over half an hour.
Sánchez Manzanares was in charge of handling the largest contract in the scandal surrounding Koldo García, a former adviser to Ábalos, for the purchase of medical supplies during the first weeks of the pandemic. The investigator of the case, Ismael Moreno, agreed to summon him as an investigator last July after making a request to the anti-corruption prosecutor’s office, which believes that he could have exerted “some pressure” on the heads of the entities that had to award the contracts for the supply of masks.
The prosecution relied on a UCO report that alluded to the fact that these alleged pressures had taken place “without allowing or giving rise to the possibility of examining other offers or budgets” and “taking them for granted and without any possibility of refuting the final award decision” to the main company under investigation in the case. A company that until 2017 had mainly dedicated itself to partnering with other companies and developing health and infrastructure projects in Africa, but when the masks arrived on the market, it had been inactive for several years.
These are facts that, according to Anticorruption, could be considered as the crime of influence peddling. For about half an hour, Sánchez Manzanares answered questions from the prosecution and his defense. And, in addition to emphasizing that he had complied with the “instructions” of his superiors, he said that he had expressed doubts about the solvency of Management Solutions.
As for the former Secretary General of the State Ports, Álvaro Sánchez Manzanares, UCO investigators revealed that he had direct contact with Víctor de Aldama, a businessman unrelated to the health sector, president of a third division football club – Zamora CF – and that he managed to find mask suppliers when the health crisis broke out. Thanks to the rewards awarded to Management Solutions, he earned 5.5 million euros, according to investigators.
Regarding his relations with Aldama and Koldo García, the former Secretary General of the State Ports stated that he maintained contact with “all the people” related to the allocation of medical supplies, according to the sources consulted. She also repeated on several occasions that it was a contract awarded in the midst of an unprecedented health crisis and under the emergency procedure, which allows contracts to be awarded practically by hand and with minimal controls and transparency.
