Part of the funds looted by former Cooperation Minister Rafael Blasco returned to his former department more than a decade later. The Department of Social Services, Equality and Housing, led by the popular vice president Susana Camarero, received a sum of 861,964.60 euros from the last piece of the “Cooperation case”, in which the former PP advisor was found guilty of prevarication and fraud.
In June, the Ministry of Finance authorized an increase in the revenue budget of this department and a transfer of an extra-budgetary item – the accounting notes of recognized rights, which are used, for example, for judicial sentences awaiting execution – to the cooperation budget. Concretely, the resolution indicates that “this corresponds to the reimbursements of the 55/20 procedure”. Exhibit 5. Cooperation case”, which proved the rigging of IT contracts for the Ministry of Solidarity and Citizenship between 2008 and 2011, when Rafael Blasco directed it.
According to the budget law of the Generalitat Valenciana for 2024, in terms of cooperation, income from the recovery of assets following final judicial decisions must be incorporated into the development cooperation budget. That is to say, what has been diverted from humanitarian aid must return to its place.
The Generalitat was already considering depositing this amount, which appeared in the embargo withholding account of the General Directorate of Inclusion, outside the budget. Now the Treasury includes this money in the accounts as income and authorizes the generation of a grant of the same amount. The regional budget includes a revenue line called “Subsidies [de] compensation to the Generalitat for the restitution of misused public funds”, where the funds recovered in cases of public administration corruption end up.
The almost millionaire revenues could be recovered thanks to the fact that the previous executive promoted an office for the control of legal proceedings in which there is economic damage to the Valencian coffers. The office, attached to the Presidency, recovered 8 million during its years of activity and remained pending the incorporation of an additional five million. During his first year in government, Carlos Mazón abolished this office and transferred this function to the Generalitat Prosecutor’s Office.
