Óscar Puente assures that only one of the contracts indicated by Aldama was signed with Ábalos as minister | Spain

The Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Óscar Puente, assures that only one of the public works contracts that according to the accused businessman Víctor de Aldama were “pre-awarded” by Puente’s predecessor, José Luis Ábalos, in exchange for commissions was signed in the time when Ábalos was minister and that after an initial analysis of his ministry, no irregularities were found in his file. For Puente, after the accusation of Aldama, the alleged ringleader of the illegal commissions plot investigated by the Koldo case, There is an attempt to mock justice.

As Puente pointed out in Congress during the celebration of Constitution Day and then detailed in more detail in which he held between 2018 and 2020 as Minister of Development and then, until 2021, as Minister of Transport.

The minister has detailed that in the documents provided by Aldama with his intention to accredit contracts as compensation for bribes, seven public works are referred to. “We are going to analyze one by one to see what signs of veracity this information has,” the minister invites you to read.

The first of the works that appear in Aldama’s papers, Puente points out, is the access to the Alicante Airport and was tendered in 2017 and awarded in May 2018, therefore before not only Ábalos was in office, but also before first Government of Pedro Sánchez, when Minister Íñigo de la Serna, of the PP, held the portfolio. The same happens with the second work, the expansion of capacity and a branch of the A-67 in Cantabria.

The third work referred to, to build a third lane on the A-66 in Asturias, is the only one that Puente points out that was tendered and contracted at the time of Ábalos (tendered in May 2019 and contracted in October of that year). Puente points out in this regard that it was awarded to the best valued in the technical phase, although “very close with the second bidder after the opening of the economic offer.”

The fourth work, for a third lane of the A-7 in Alicante, was put out to tender in September 2023, during the time of the socialist minister Raquel Sánchez, and the contract was formalized last June, with Puente already directing the ministry. The tender for the fifth mentioned work, the expansion of the A-67 between Polanco and Santander, also falls under the mandate of Raquel Sánchez, tendered in May 2023 and with the contract formalized in March of this year.

The sixth and seventh public works that appear in Aldama’s papers correspond to two actions that, Puente emphasizes, “have not even been tendered yet.” The first is for the A-21 in Jaca (Huesca) and the second for a third lane of the A-7 in the connecting section of Monteagudo and Fortuna (Murcia).

Puente has insisted that only one of the seven referred to corresponds to the period of José Luis Ábalos, and has also added that in it “nothing irregular has been observed in the hiring file.” “This analysis covers exclusively what has emerged through the media. We have to continue analyzing and delving deeper based on the judicial documentation. But it is already striking that what the investigator has chosen to highlight in his writing is discredited,” he stated in X Puente.

The minister has concluded his thread on the social network by assuring that the data he has published and others that his department continues to collect and analyze “will be incorporated into a detailed report” that he will provide “to the court that is investigating the case.” “We want to be proactive and not wait to be required,” he concluded.

The Government is working on a report to clarify the issue that will be published in the coming days. Puente assured this Friday morning in La Sexta regarding the papers presented by Aldama to the Supreme Court: “What we are seeing, at least from the initial study, is that what he said does not make any sense, neither head nor tail.” .

Puente already announced this Thursday that his team will “review” all public works contracts that according to Aldama were “pre-awarded” by Puente’s predecessor in the ministry in exchange for commissions. The minister, who yesterday was more than skeptical about the veracity of the accusations that Aldama has addressed in a letter to the Supreme Court, has advanced this Friday that the analyzes of these agreements carried out by his ministry “are going to be bad news.” for Mr. Aldama” who, he said, “what he is doing is teasing the judge.” The assumption achiever of the plot presented in his brief to the magistrate some annexes to the General State Budgets with public works contracts, several of them supposedly highlighted because they were granted as consideration for the payment of commissions.

The minister downplayed Aldama’s accusations already this Thursday. “What I have been able to see (…) is an Official State Gazette, an underlined investment annex, as evidence it really has little value,” the minister insisted regarding the documentation provided by the defense of the accused businessman. Puente also recalled that the awarding of a contract is not a unilateral decision, but rather it is a process that “involves many people.” “I am surprised that it is said that the minister has the capacity to decide who is awarded a work; That is to say, they are contracting tables where the State Attorney’s Office is present, intervention, there are a lot of technicians”, and that “neither the minister nor any politician are” present, so “it is very difficult” for the events occurred as Aldama relates them. “But let’s check,” he insisted.

José Luis Ábalos, former number three of the PSOE, former Minister of Transport in the Government of Pedro Sánchez and current deputy of the Mixed Group, is summoned to give a statement before the instructor of the case in the Supreme Court, Judge Leopoldo Puente, on December 12 and “voluntarily”. However, Ábalos has requested, in light of Aldama’s letter, that his appearance be postponed for a few days because he has had problems accessing the case and needs to be able to study it carefully. The appearances as defendants of Ábalos himself (December 16) and of Ábalos’s former assistant in the ministry Koldo García (December 17), who gives the informal name to the case, are also already scheduled.

One of the last movements of Judge Leopoldo Puente has been to reject the dumping of the contents of Aldama’s cell phone, as his defense had requested, although he has not closed the door to carrying out this procedure later.