Former officials of the public company Adif, dependent on the Ministry of Transport, denied this Monday before the judge of the “Koldo case” having suffered any pressure to contract the purchase of masks in 2020 with the company Soluciones de Gestión — linked to the investigated area — and indicated that the audit report prepared by order of the current minister Óscar Puente is “incomplete.”
This was stated by judicial sources present in the statements of this Monday, in which they appeared before the president of the Central Court of Instruction number 2, Ismael Moreno, the former president of the Adif and the former Secretary of State for Transport, Isabel. Pardo de Vera; the director of human resources of the Adif, Martín José Navarro Vicent; and the financial and management control director of Adif, Manuel Fresno Castro.
While some sources consulted have stressed that the statements focused a lot on the financial aspects related to the Public Administration contracts to know how the signing with Management Solutions took place, others have stressed that if there was pressure, it was to obtain the material as quickly as possible but not to sign with a specific company.
Pardo de Vera and Fresno also attacked the audit report prepared within the ministry by order of the current minister, Óscar Puente, calling it incomplete and erroneous. It should be remembered that this report was brought to the file after the instructor requested it, and led former minister José Luis Ábalos to request, unsuccessfully, to appear as a victim in the file, knowing that he had been used to limit responsibilities during his term at the head of this department.
A report with non-existent statements
Fresno, according to sources consulted, has in fact stated that this report of the Ministry even includes words that he never uttered, and, today, witnesses explained that this audit ignores relevant issues such as the fact that the other company contacted to buy masks by Adif, Injoo Technologies, served poor quality material and delivered less than promised.
It is worth recalling that, according to this report from the ministry, Fresno would have indicated that the company Soluciones de Gestión “had a network” that gave him “goosebumps” and that after studying the Angolan contract, he did not like it at all because it was “a company of chicha and turnip.”
However, Fresno told the judge on Monday that it never conducted any evaluations on Management Solutions and that it limited itself to collecting and offering business information.
On the other hand, Pardo de Vera indicated today, according to sources consulted, that when he went to the ministry to talk with Minister Ábalos, he frequently saw the alleged “director” of the plot, Víctor de Aldama.
