This is indicated in a document sent this Thursday to the Central Court of Instruction number 2 of the National Court, in charge of this judicial case, which concerns the alleged collection of illegal commissions through public contracts awarded at the beginning of Covid-19 to the company SL Management Solutions.
As reported by EL ESPAÑOL, the audit commissioned by Óscar Puente, Ábalos’ successor as minister, concluded that “there is no documentary evidence of the delivery” of a total of 6.8 million masks purchased from this company. That is, Only 1.2 million could be proven to have gone there.since in total, Soluciones de Gestión SL has delivered eight million masks to the public company Puertos del Estado, dependent on Transports.
The price paid for each mask was 2.5 euros, despite cheaper offers. The undelivered masks therefore have a value of more than 17 million public euros.
“Without a doubt, it is necessary and useful for this investigation to clarify the chain of possession of the object of this procedure, which was none other than the acquisition of medical equipment, masks, for the staff of the Ministry of Transport: more than “6.8 million units, their destination is unknown, which represents an enormous financial sum”, warns Liberum in its writings, relying on what this newspaper reveals.
The popular accusation insists on “the need to investigate what really happened to this merchandise” to clarify “if it was lost or misregistered, the result of disastrous public management.” In fact, this does not exclude “the possibility of resale on the market”For this reason, Liberum is asking the judge to call as witnesses several senior officials from the Ministry of Transport and public companies attached to it.
The audit commissioned by Oscar Puente reveals that to date, the delivery of 6.8 million masks to various public organizations cannot be documented.
In other words, the Ministry of Transport can only verify the correct distribution of 1.2 million masks out of the eight acquired under this contract from Management Solutions.
Half of them (4 million) were intended for “public entities in the field of land transport” and the remaining 50% for the “land transport sector and MITMA personnel”. [Ministerio de Transportes, Movilidad y Agenda Urbana]”.
From the first block, 2,861,806 masks, or 7.26 million euros, are listed as “without proof of receipt”There is official confirmation of the delivery of 1,138,194 masks (2,888,167.28 euros).
“Regarding the four million masks intended for the land transport sector and MITMA personnel, there is no documentary evidence of delivery to MITMA, the Post Office or the General Directorate of Land Transport at the time,” the audit report states.
Then, the file highlights that, “despite this lack of documentary evidence that the masks reached their final recipients”, Transport paid 100% of them. Specifically, this was done by the public entity Puertos del Estado, dependent on the ministry, which paid Raminatrans, the company in charge of the logistics of said contract at Barajas airport.
“It is appreciated lack of control of the four million masks intended for the land transport sector and MITMA personnel, given that the number of masks destined for one or the other destination is unknown. There is no record of delivery to the Post Office of the 2,870,287 masks that (…) were to be distributed to the transporters. At the same time, there is no documentary evidence of the receipt by the autonomous communities of 463,740 masks (€1,176,508), and there is no documentary evidence of the receipt by the railway companies of 2,438 masks (€6,185)”, the report concludes.
Duplicate order
In addition, with only 38 minutes difference, former minister José Luis Ábalos I doubled the amount of the order placed by Puertos del Estado with Soluciones de Gestión SL, considered the epicenter of what is called Koldo case.
In the context of the Covid-19 pandemic at its peak, Transportes initially intended to acquire four million masks at a unit price of 2.5 euros. However, after intermediation in the award process Koldo Garciawho was at the time an advisor to Ábalos and who gives his name to this legal case, the ministry ended up acquiring eight million masks (for a total value of 20 million euros).
According to the aforementioned audit report, the Ministry of Transport sent on March 20, 2020, at 7:55 p.m., a ministerial order signed by Ábalos for the purchase of up to 4 million masks from Soluciones de Gestión SL.
However, just over half an hour later, at 8:33 p.m. on the same day, the then minister sent a second order, in which he doubled the amount of that order to eight million masks.
The audit report concludes that Ábalos thus adapted the request to the offer that the company had sent to the ministry and that the contract was therefore not decided on the basis of the real needs of the department.
In fact, according to the report, Koldo García had warned that “the supplier [Soluciones de Gestión SL] provided 8 million or nothing“.
Asked about this by the authors of the report, the then Under-Secretary of State for Transport, Jesus Manuel Gomez Garciaindicated that he assumed that Koldo’s statements were supported by the minister. Especially since he verified that Ábalos himself had signed the second order, issued a few minutes later, to double the amount of the order.
“So it might seem that the final estimate of the scale of the emergency, which doubled in just 38 minutes, would be more linked to the existing offer [la presentada por la trama de Koldo] than with the needs detected in relation to a certain period, 15 calendar days, which was at that time (March 20, 2020) the period officially planned for the state of alarm,” the file concludes.
The current Minister of Transport, Oscar Bridgeannounced last Friday the dismissal of Undersecretary of State Jesús Manuel Gómez García and the chief of staff of the Adif, Michaux Mirandawho are summoned to testify next September as indicted before the investigating judge Koldo case.
In a Senate appearance, Puente attributed the two firings because there was a “loss of confidence” to the two management positions, after having taken note of the conclusions of the internal audit that it ordered last February.
On the other hand, As published by EL ESPAÑOL, the former minister Jose Luis Abalos He does not remember why he doubled, in just 38 minutes, the order of masks from the alleged corrupt conspiracy and sees a clear “political intention” in the internal audit ordered by his successor.
