ACCIONA opens an inside investigation after guaranteeing that he doesn’t know the cost of bites to Ábalos and Koldo | Economy | EUROtoday

The building firm Actiona has drawn a firewall to guard its first directive line from the scandal brought on by the alleged cost of bites to the previous Minister of Transportation, José Luis Ábalos, and his advisor, Koldo García, in change for public works contracts awarded between 2018 and 2021, through the stage of each within the Ministry of Transport. The sum of the competitions received in doable fraud exceeds 500 million euros. Action, quoted within the inventory market and managed by the entrecanal household, one of many sagas with the best expertise within the execution of public infrastructure in Spain, has opened an inside investigation after having been indicated by the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard in an in depth report on the Ábalos case, wherein the mistress of quite a few tenders is uncovered. The firm has expressed “ignorance, surprise and concern” to the information investigated.

Throughout a protracted story by the UCO, all types of indications are provided that result in Santos Cerdán, secretary of the PSOE group, a place he has resigned this afternoon, as an middleman or “manager” of a battery of “economic consideration” that he acts would have paid Ábalos and García. The president of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, has described as “very serious” these indications throughout a press convention held on the headquarters of the PSOE in Madrid, wherein he acted as secretary common of the Socialists. The political earthquake is of huge dimensions, though Sánchez guidelines out the electoral advance.

The very first thing that has achieved, in response to the report, is to restrict all accountability, that in any case it might load on a firewood in April 2021 and that the UCO identifies as an organization’s hyperlink with Santos Cerdán and Koldo García. This is Fernando Merino Vera, who was director of Acciona for Navarra and La Rioja. Merino’s place within the building division was third degree. “Given the possible elusion of the internal controls that could have been produced, the company has opened an investigation for the clarification of these facts and the purification, where appropriate, of the personal responsibilities that proceed,” he says, he acts by means of a press release.

Action funds below rope, in keeping with the UCO, would add 620,000 euros and one other 450,000 euros have been “pending fertilizer” in view of assorted communications between the excessive positions of the PSOE investigated. Of these figures, 550,000 euros are linked to 2 Adif awards A ACCIONA within the Railway Network of Murcia. The 450,000 with out paying are associated by the Civil Guard with three different contracts received by Actiona in Logroño, Sevilla and Sant Feliu de Llobregat (Barcelona).

The report argues that the mistress of the tenders was doable due to the connection between Actiona and Santos Cerdán, in addition to the participation of Koldo García and Ábalos himself, amongst different excessive transport positions. The Civil Guard refers to a primary assembly between the then minister and the president of Acciona, José Manuel Entrecanales, on July 30, 2018, a gathering that “could be understood in a first reciprocal knowledge, the result of the new journey [de José Luis Ábalos] In the bosom of mitma [Ministerio de Transportes]”At a time in a row, he realizes a notice of Koldo García wherein he claims to have communication with entrecanals.

In the competitions investigated, all of them open to the concurrence of different presents, Action was imposed with excessive scores within the technical part, of subjective analysis towards the objectivity of the financial provide. These are that of the burial of the railway community within the metropolis of Murcia (158.8 million awarding quantity); the execution of the Mediterranean hall platform within the Pulpí-Vera part (121.2 million euros); the development of the encompass section-Navarrete of the A-68 freeway, in La Rioja (92.4 million); Works on the Sevillian bridge of Centenary (102.8 million) and the execution of the combination of the railroad in Sant Felui de Llobregat (62 million).

The UCO appreciates within the allegedly fraudulent interventions awards of which she was president of Adif and subsequently secretary of State of Infrastructure, Isabel Pardo de Vera, and Javier Herrero, who led the General Directorate of Roads through the mandate of Ábalos in Transport.

ACCIONA qualifies as “usual formula” the creation of non permanent corporations of corporations (UTES) with native signatures to go to one of these competitions. He additionally states that in all of the UTES wherein he participates, “formal commitments are always established with a contractual nature of respect and subject to the most demanding standards of regulatory compliance and due diligence by all its members, whose compliance is verified and audited constantly.” In this sense, the agency chaired by José Manuel Entrecanales expresses that if the information “involving other companies that have participated in UTES of which he has been an action, the company will take the appropriate legal measures” will probably be confirmed.

Old acquaintances

The fastened analysis in 2015 and in Navarra the start of the connection between Santos Cerdán and Koldo García with Acciona, by means of the supervisor Fernando Merino, on the event of a mining exploitation of potassa between Aragon and Navarra linked to the Geoalcali firm. Koldo García labored within the Regional Community of Navarra and had a “labor and personal” dependency of Santos Cerdán, affirms within the position that the investigations recounts.

With the arrival of Koldo García in Madrid in 2017, as the motive force of the then Secretary of Organization of the PSOE, José Luis Ábalos, and the next passage of each of the Ministry of Transportation in June 2018, the connection with Actiona would have narrowed. Santos Cerdán, then again, appeared within the capital as Secretary of Territorial Coordination of the PSOE. The UCO exposes in his doc that Cerdán positioned Koldo within the confidence surroundings of Ábalos, “which would have allowed him to be able to exert some influence on concrete awards of public works in favor of ACCIONA, as well as possible appointments of organic positions in the mitma”.

The Civil Guard has tried to show throughout that stage of Ábalos in Transportes, which led to 2021, the “large -scale adjudication of numerous public works contracts in favor of certain companies (acts among others), as well as the alleged collection of commissions derived from them”. Throughout 500 pages it’s argued that “Ábalos and Koldo would have received high amounts of money with Santos mediation as a result of the award of certain public works contracts, coming to associate such payments to concrete tenders in which, as a common denominator, it was awarded active construction”.

The devastating Civil Guard report, which exposes an alleged corrupt plot in public works, additionally reaches OPR (public works and irrigation), with contracts in Asturias, Úbeda (Jaén) and Monforte (Lugo). And to a 3rd firm, Lic (Levantina, Engineering and Construction), with awards in Asturias, Teruel and Galicia. In the investigation there are funds of LIC to Koldo García of two,600 euros per thirty days, as soon as it was employed between December 2022 and June 2023; and deliveries of 1,300 euros per thirty days between September 2, 2022 and June 2, 2023 of OPR “to the surroundings of Koldo”, by means of the hiring of his companion, Patricia Uriziriarte by the corporate Aridos Anfersa.