The Balearic Parliament will create a commission to investigate the contracts of the Government of Francina Armengol with the company investigated by the National Court in the Koldo García plot. The PP has notified this Monday that it will support the proposal raised by Vox so that this branch of the plot is also investigated in the Balearic Islands. It will be the third commission created for the same purpose after those that have already been announced in Congress and the Senate. PP and Vox have a sufficient majority in the Balearic Chamber for the proposal to go ahead.
Once the commission is created, following the agreement that will be adopted this Tuesday by the plenary session of the Parliament, the work plan and the list of those appearing must be approved, but the PP has already hinted that one of the people who will be summoned to give all the explanations is the president of Congress, Francina Armengol, who was in charge of the Balearic Executive when the company under investigation was hired.
The PP spokesperson in the Parliament, Sebastià Sagreras, denounced this Monday the silence of Armengol, who still does not clarify who was the person who contacted his Government and who he contacted to offer the masks. Sagreras has spoken of “constant contradictions, lies and lack of answers.” “We want all doubts regarding the purchase of masks to be clarified,” he said.
The Balearic PSOE has not revealed what it will vote for this Tuesday when this issue is raised. The Socialist spokesperson in the Autonomous Chamber, Iago Negueruela, has kept the vote of his deputies unknown and has insisted that it is the PP that must give explanations and clarify its has allowed the file to expire with the claim of 2.6 million to the company. He has insisted that the socialists have already given “all the explanations.”
In April 2020, Francina Armengol’s Government hired the company investigated in this plot to supply 1.4 million FFP2 masks from China. The Balearic Islands paid 3.7 million euros for the purchase, but a check carried out a few weeks later verified that the masks did not have the technical conditions of an FFP2. The material was stored and never used, to the point that they are still stored even though they have already expired.
Two years later, in July 2022, the Civil Guard appeared at the offices of the Balearic Health Service, at the request of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, to request the file. The previous Government assures that no one from the Health Department alerted the Community Attorney’s Office about the Prosecutor’s Office’s request.
In March 2023, two months before the regional elections, the person responsible for this service sent a letter to the company warning them about the arrival of masks that were not those that had been requested. However, the claim for the difference in money between what was paid and what the masks actually cost, an extra cost of 2.6 million euros, did not begin to be processed until three years later, on July 6, 2023, the same day that Marga Prohens was elected president of the community in place of Francina Armengol.
In the punctures carried out on the members of the plot, the enormous nervousness caused by the claim for the 2.6 million euros and the pressure that members of the Health Service were subjected to to let the file expire are constant. The Government of Marga Prohens is preparing a new claim and has requested to appear in the case as an injured party, something that the judge has so far rejected since the masks were paid for with European funds.
