Ayuso denounces twelve contracts of the Government of Sánchez in a pandemic in the Prosecutor’s Office

Isabel Díaz Ayuso strikes back. The president of Madrid announced this Thursday in the plenary session of the Regional Assembly that the Popular Parliamentary Group that she chairs is going to denounce today before the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office twelve allegedly irregular contracts worth 326 million and signed by the Government of Pedro Sánchez for the purchase of various material during the health crisis caused by Covid. The popular complaint is for possible crimes of prevarication, influence peddling and embezzlement.

According to the head of the regional Executive, the awards of those emergency contracts were made to seven companies related to the PSOE. In particular, the beneficiary firms -according to the complaint- are linked to Sánchez himself, with the former Minister of Health Salvador Illa and the First Vice President and Minister of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, Nadia Calviño.

In addition to these contracts, the popular Madrid citizens will take fourteen “aid in the form of guarantees worth more than 800,000 euros” to Anticorruption, which would also present irregularities.

“Investigate Everyone”

“We are going to start investigating everyone,” the Madrid leader warned the opposition. “These are contracts that exceeded 326 million euros to the public treasury and that even administered masks for a value between 25 and 500% above previous awards at the same time.” “You (PSOE deputies) are going to have to give many explanations,” warned the president.

“In some cases the material did not even arrive, leaving, therefore, many health workers and many patients without protection and in other cases the amounts paid in advance were not reimbursed,” denounced the Madrid leader.

The opposition, which three weeks after the political storm broke out over her brother’s intervention in the controversial mask contract, continues to ask the president for explanations, although for now the PP has managed to stop an investigation commission in the Assembly.

However, the Prosecutor’s Office, after complaints from the opposition, does continue with its preliminary proceedings on that award by the Community of Madrid to Priviet of a contract of 1.5 million euros for the supply of 250,000 masks. In that operation, which was carried out in April 2020, the brother of the Madrid president has already acknowledged that he was involved and that he received 55,850 euros plus VAT. However, and as the regional government has already admitted, Díaz Ayuso that year turned three other invoices against Priviet for a total value of 283,000 euros, although the regional Executive argues that they were for work that had nothing to do with the community.

The Prosecutor’s Office plans to summon Tomás Díaz Ayuso and his friend Daniel Alcázar, owner of the Priviet Sportiv company. However, before the interrogation of Ayuso’s brother and his friend, however, Anticorruption wants to have several reports on the table. The Prosecutor’s Office has already requested a report from the General State Intervention to find out if there was any irregularity in the award. The Public Ministry is not worth the fact that the regional Executive and its president have actively and passively ensured that the supervisory bodies of the community have already approved that contract. In fact, the Chamber of Accounts of Madrid has denied, as stated by the regional government, that it has completed the audit report on the controversial award.

Anticorruption will also request the bank information of both Tomás Díaz Ayuso and Priviet, in addition to the invoices drawn by the president’s brother, to clarify for what exact reason the four payments were made; if three of them were indeed for “real work” outside the community; and what was the real role of the president’s brother in this transaction, which Ayuso assures that he was never the “commission agent.”