Former Undersecretary of the Ministry of Transport Jesus Manuel Gomez He told the judge on Monday that Koldo Garciaformer advisor to the former minister Jose Luis AbalosIt was he who provided him with the offer from the company that ended up being hired and he forwarded it to the entities that were to award the contracts.
Gómez, dismissed a month ago by the minister Oscar Bridge Following the results of the audit ordered on the contracts, he appeared this Monday before the National Court to testify as being the subject of an investigation for alleged influence peddling in the so-called Koldo affair.
As reported Efe legal sources, Gómez explained that the minister at the time, José Luis Ábalos asked him to be in charge of managing the procurement of batches of masks at the beginning of the pandemic because his department was one of the four that made up the ministerial commission that acquired the equipment – Transport, Interior, Health and Defense.
He, he said, was then in charge of transmitting to the contracting bodies that depended on Transport – State Ports and Adif – the offer that had been provided to him by the advisor to the minister at the time, Koldo García, one of the main investigated, and who was the one who had presented Management Solutions, the company on which the alleged plot revolves.
Other sources say they did not specifically indicate that it should be this company.
There were other offersas he admitted, as a member of the Terraplanet Societywhich was cheaper than Soluciones de Gestión, although it arrived on March 23, when they had already committed to the second one, so changing supplier would have meant having to pay a tax in favor of Soluciones, according to sources.
The former Undersecretary of Transportation, who said he worked alone with former Minister José Luis Ábalos, said he had commissioned a solvency study of the company Soluciones de Gestión and had repeatedly asked Puertos del Estado and Adif to do the same.
In his statementAccording to sources, highlighted the emergency context experienced in the first moments of the pandemic and the difficulty of hiring; In addition, he indicated that it had been decided to order 8 million masks instead of 4 as had been initially envisaged, due to this emergency situation.
On March 21, 2020, Puertos del Estado awarded Soluciones de Gestión a contract for the supply of masks worth 20 million euros; six days later, Adif did so for 12.5 million euros. The prosecution suspects Koldo García of having acted as an “intermediary” in favor of said company and that in exchange, he received commissions.
About other accused such as the so-called “commissioner” Victor de Aldamaformer Undersecretary of Transportation He said he did not know him and had not seen him at the ministry.whom he frequented, according to investigators’ suspicions.
Following this statement, the lawyer for Vox, the People’s Prosecutor’s Office, considered that some of the witnesses who appeared should be investigated and stressed that “the decision-making sphere” regarding the contracts was “in the person of Minister Abalos.”
