Madrid
Updated:
Save
The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office has archived the investigative proceedings that it opened last February after the complaints by left-wing groups in the Madrid Assembly about possible influence peddling in the purchase of masks from the Community of Madrid from a company run by a friend of the brother of President Isabel Díaz Ayuso.
The decree notified this Thursday concludes that “the analysis of the processing of the contract, its object, price and execution does not allow any illegality to be specified, at least with regard to the conduct included in the perimeter of this investigation.”
Specifically, it was about determining whether there was any influence peddling because Tomás Díaz Ayuso received, according to what the regional president told the media, 55,850 euros from Priviet Sportive, the company that was awarded a contract of 1.5 million euros to acquire 250,000 masks.
The PSOE, United We Can and More Madrid questioned the cleanliness of that contract and argued that the commission could be due to their intermediation to achieve it, given the friendship of the president’s brother with the administrator of Priviet, Daniel Alcázar.
Anticorruption, on the other hand, concludes that «There is no record of direct or indirect intervention by the President of the Community of Madrid in this file nor of the mediation on his behalf of Mr. Tomás Díaz Ayuso before any official or authority».
«The statements provided by all the witnesses who have had some relevant intervention in the processing of the file and have testified in these proceedings are answers in the sense of not having received an indication, call, recommendation or suggestion from an authority or official interested in this hiring or by the Priviet company,” says the decree signed by chief prosecutor Alejandro Luzón.
As for the money that Tomás Díaz Ayuso invoiced the company, he issued on April 30, May 30 and June 30, 2020 the invoices for the payment of “a fixed amount agreed” with the company: 175,000 euros and the day June 15, 2020 the invoice for a bonus of approximately 4% of the award amount. “In the four invoices it appears as a concept” commercial commission “”, details the decree.
Altogether, Priviet Sportive «he paid the previous invoices through four installment payments for a total amount of 234,103.52 euros which he transferred to the ING Bank account owned by Mr. Tomás Díaz Ayuso». «Therefore, the commission received by Mr. Díaz Ayuso corresponds, in part -175,000 euros-, to the work carried out for Priviet in relation to different offers, including the one analyzed; and, in another part -59,203.52 euros-, to the bonus agreed for obtaining the contract for the masks with the Community of Madrid”, details the resolution.
The figure does not adjust to the 55,850 that the president of the Community of Madrid said in public nor to the 283,000 that the former president of the PP Pablo Casado pointed out when in a radio interview he criticized that the brother of Isabel Díaz Ayuso was billing material healthcare in the first wave of the pandemic. In any case, the 234,103 euros that Anticorruption talks about are for various services, not only for those related to this contract with the Community of Madrid.
www.abc.es
George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism