The batch of masks that arrived in the Balearic Islands through the efforts of the main person investigated for the case were previously rejected by another administration, although it is not known who made the initial request. The offer reached the Balearic Government via telephone two days before they arrived in Barajas from China. The email arrived a day early so the masks “were either in the air or the plane had just been chartered,” according to the general director of the Balearic Islands Health Service, Javier Ureña. It is not known who had the initial telephone conversation, but this verbal contact is mentioned in one of the emails that the company sent to the Balearic administration.
This Wednesday, the Government of Marga Prohens formalized the request to appear in the case, which opens the door to claiming, through criminal proceedings, the 3.7 million that were paid and starting another front against Francina Armengol. The socialists of the Islands accuse the current Balearic president of lying and insist that the Government has let the file expire and wonders about the reasons, something that the current executive denies. The new officials point out that the claim file for the extra cost of the masks was opened ex officio on August 24, with Prohens as president, and not in the previous stage, as Francina Armengol said in her first statements about her case. .
In any case, the current leaders of the Health Service are studying, with the community’s Lawyers, to start a new administrative procedure because they fear that the previous one will not succeed. They allege that the previous managers issued a certification, at the company’s request, in which they ensured that the order was satisfactory and complied with the technical conditions, despite the fact that there was evidence that this was not the case because the masks were rejected and never They were used.
The Balearic Government requested a subsidy from the European Union to pay for the masks with FEDER funds and again on this occasion it did not warn that the shipment did not correspond to the required technical requirements, according to the vice president of the Balearic Government, Antoni Costa.
The general director of the Health Service has made a detailed chronology of the entire procedure, including the visit of two officials from the company Management Solutions and Business Support to request the file and to visit the warehouse where the masks were left, which were finally They were not used and have already expired. The visit occurred after the Prohens Government initiated the administrative procedure to claim the refund of the extra cost. Ureña has indicated that the company only had contact with officials and at no time did it meet with political officials.
“There are many questions that we cannot answer because there are many unknowns,” said Ureña. He recalled that the Civil Guard appeared in July 2022 to collect the file signed with the company at the request of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office. “It is striking that the Civil Guard appears at the IB-Salut and the Government did nothing until March,” she added.
The socialists insist on asking the president of the Government, Marga Prohens, for explanations about the expiration of the file for claiming the extra cost, despite the fact that the current rulers reiterate that this circumstance does not occur. For the socialist spokesperson, Iago Negueruela, Francina Armengol’s right-hand man during her mandate, Prohens demonstrates “inefficiency and incompetence” and has announced that they will request the appearance of the Minister of Health in Parliament to explain how the file is.
Ureña says the opposite, insisting that the Government is within the deadline and remembers, in any case, that criminal proceedings open the possibility of claiming all of the defrauded money and not a part, since the masks were never used. The current leaders of the Government insist, in any case, that it is the previous president, Francina Armengol, who must clarify why it took three years to issue the first report to claim partial refund of the amounts.
