“Fall who falls”, ordered Pedro Sánchez to cut off any hint of corruption in his Government following the scandal in the case of Koldo García, the former personal assistant of the former Minister of Transport José Luis Ábalos, already suspended from militancy in the PSOE, although he chose to go to his seat in the mixed group of the Congress.
And the first to assume as his own the order of the head of the Executive was the current Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, who last week immediately opened an internal audit to clear possible responsibilities in his department, in the purchase of masks to the alleged corrupt plot during the pandemic, aside from the ongoing judicial investigations. The first conclusion came yesterday, relentless.
“Fall who falls”, corroborates to La Vanguardia Puente himself, who yesterday decided the sudden dismissal of the first high-ranking official of the Spanish Government to fall following the Koldo case: until now the Secretary General of Ports of the State, Álvaro Sánchez Manzanares, who joined this public body in 2009. The official reason for the dismissal is the minister’s “loss of confidence”.
Close sources argue that Sánchez Manzanares put in the signature of his boss, the president of State Ports, Álvaro Rodríguez Dapena, a response to the Antifraud Office “that lacks the truth in the narration of the facts”. The now deposed denied any relationship or connection with Koldo García or with the alleged ringleader of the corrupt plot, Víctor de Aldama. But the close relationship between them, proven by the investigation, now motivates their dismissal, which will be effective today at a meeting of the governing council of State Ports. In this body, precisely, Koldo García had a seat, until the dismissal of Ábalos as Minister of Transport in July 2021.
Ports de l’Estat, dependent on the Ministry of Transport, was the first public body to contract the purchase of masks for the alleged corrupt plot for an amount of 24 million euros. A contract that could open the doors to other ministries and public administrations.
Francina Armengol is not studying similar measures. Neither with herself nor with the team she surrounded herself with during the two legislatures in which she was at the head of the Balearic government.
The current president of Congress broke her silence yesterday after a week of being the favorite target of the PP in its offensive for the purchase of masks that the executive she presided over carried out with the plot of the Koldo case. But she did it to warn that, despite having “crossed all the red lines” with her smear campaign, those of Alberto Núñez Feijóo are dealing with her.
The third authority of the State not only denied that he had thought of resigning, but promised a battle against those who try to tarnish his name: “It is curious that the person who is asking for my resignation is precisely the only one who appears in the summary of the case”, he quipped pointing to the spokesperson of the PP in Congress, Miguel Tellado.
Despite the insistence of the press to know who recommended the Balearic government to contract the masks with the company Soluciones de Gestión SL, Armengol did not want to say any names and alleged that all the contacts received in the middle of the pandemic were redirected and “managed” by the technicians of the Regional Health Service, about whom, he stressed, “neither the Anti-Corruption Office nor the Prosecutor’s Office have found any indication” of irregularities. “In any case, she could be a victim, not an accomplice,” he said.
And regaining his defiant tone, he said, looking ahead: “I have never pressed for one company or another to be hired. I’m not that kind of person.”
