The previous government of the Canary Islands, made up of the pact of flowers (PSOE-NC- Podemos and ASG) and chaired by the current Minister of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, Ángel Víctor Torres, and the previous Balearic executive of the current president of Congress , Francina Armengol, closed contracts with the company Soluciones de Gestión y Apoyo a Empresas S.L, which is being investigated today within the framework of a scheme to collect commissions for the sale of masks during the pandemic that affects the advisor to the Minister of Transport José Luis Abalos. Up to almost 16 million euros were paid.
The Government of the Canary Islands awarded up to three contracts to this company for an amount of more than 12 million euros. The first for two million, a second for 4.7 million and a third for five million. In total 12.2 million.
The first agreement was closed in April 2020 for a value of just over 2 million euros. At that time, Julio Pérez (who was Secretary of State for Justice in 2007, while the socialist Mariano Fernández Bermejo was minister during the Rodríguez Zapatero era, was Minister of Health). At that time, Antonio Olivera was director of the Canarian Health Service (SCS), who is today in Torres’ office in Madrid. The contract comes from the then director of Economic Resources of the SCS, Ana María Perez. She, who was investigated in the so-called Mascarillas de Canarias case in which the regional government purchased medical supplies for four million euros from an RR7 car company in 2020, was the one who contacted Management Solutions.
From the first contract closed with Management Solutions in 2020, only a third of the approved masks arrived and they were also not of the agreed type, the FPP2. Then, after negotiating with the company, those masks were paid at the real price and the order was completed with others of the FPP2 type until reaching two million euros and 2.7 million masks. The face masks arrived in February 2021 and were paid for at the agreed price despite the fact that their cost on the market was already lower. This decision was made by Conrado Domínguez, who had recently become the director of the SCS. He is another of those investigated in the Mascarillas de Canarias case and his name appears in the Mediator case, that of ‘Tito Berni’. The investigating judge summons him when she understands that he is part of the plot but he has not yet been called to testify.
Domínguez is also involved in a second contract that the Government of the Canary Islands closed with the company Soluciones de Gestión despite its non-compliance and with which the global amount of almost seven million was reached. It should be noted that the Audit of Accounts drew attention to the absence of procedures in the awarding of this contract and the report with the warnings was submitted to a full session, although it was not approved.
The president of the Government of the Canary Islands (CC and PP), Fernando Clavijo, announced yesterday an internal investigation to determine what happened and determine responsibilities. The Secretary of Organization of the PSOE in the Canary Islands, Niera Fierro, assured yesterday, for her part, that the batches of masks acquired from Management Solutions are “absolutely audited” by the legal services of the Government of the Canary Islands and the Audience of Accounts.
Minister Torres completely disassociated himself from the events and assured that he will collaborate to reach the final consequences. He asked that “the full weight of the law fall” on those who have profited irregularly, according to Efe.
In the Balearic case, a contract worth 3.7 million euros is being investigated for the purchase of 1.4 million masks in April 2020. The Government of Francina Armengol carried out a verification of the materials and verified that, despite that I had bought them at the price of FPP2, in reality their characteristics were those of a surgical mask. This implies that an extra price of 2.6 million euros was paid for material that remains stored and unused since the possible fraud was verified.
The former Balearic president has not made any statements on this matter but her right-hand man on the islands, Iago Negueruela, insists that the masks were not those that were requested but, once the pandemic had passed, the Government initiated the file to recover the money paid. the rest. The Balearic PSOE assures that this file began on March 20, two months before the regional elections, but the Government of Marga Prohens maintains that this document does not appear in the file and the claim is dated July 6, precisely the day when Prohens was elected president.
This Thursday it was revealed that Civil Guard agents appeared in July 2022 at the Balearic Health Service to claim the company’s contracts. Documentation with the entire file was taken within the framework of an operation coordinated by the Special Prosecutor’s Office against Corruption and Organized Crime. The agents requested the information from Manuel Palomino, who served as director of Management and Budgets of the Health Service. The company Management and Support Solutions for Businesses was being investigated at least since then, something that the Government of France Armengol was already aware of by virtue of this request for information.
The socialists do not clarify for now which position in the Ministry of Development offered the masks to the Government or who from the Balearic Islands was the interlocutor, but the president of the Balearic Islands, Marga Prohens, has directly pointed out her predecessor, whom she places at the center of the plot. Prohens and other leaders have called on the president of Congress to give full explanations as to why she hid this matter.
