The verbal skill of the Minister of Economy, Finance and Employment of the Community of Madrid, Rocío Albert, managed to convey the idea – FALSA – that the autonomic government has never awarded any contract to Economic Team SL, a key piece in the judicial investigation on the supposedly corrupt and articulated plot around the former minister of the PP Cristóbal Montoro. The company itself declared the Treasury 314,360 euros paid by the Community of Madrid between 2008 and 2011, as stated in a UCO report incorporated into the summary of the Montoro case.
That money, whose origin is unknown to the Civil Guard as it appears in the aforementioned report – that is, as it was paid – adds to the 1.8 million that Madrid disbursed Madrid. Registered as a private association, Madrid Network was co -founded by the Community of Madrid, chaired at least for years for those who will occupy at all times the position of Minister of Economy and financed with public funds.
The idea that the community never had a direct treatment with an economic team SL was embodied, voluntarily or involuntarily, in the counselor's speech as follows: “You – he said addressed to the socialist deputy Agustín Vinegar, who had just launched an issue on the matter – asks me how many contracts have been signed in this legislature by the Community of Madrid to the economic team of Montoro. In this legislature, neither in the previous one, nor in the previous one of the previous one, not even in the previous one to the previous one.
The parliamentarian had not limited his intervention to what happened this legislature or any in particular. He emphasized what is already known about Tandem Madrid Network-Economic Equipment and reproached Albert to continue subsidizing the association that swelled the accounts of the office created by Cristóbal Montoro with 1,863,025.45 euros in four years. Between June 2008 and the same month of 2011, the Madrid Minister of Economy and President of Madrid Network was Antonio Beteta. In December 2011 he joined the Ministry of Montoro as Secretary of State.
The chain of legislatures woven by Rocío Albert – already narrated on the previous legislature of the previous one – led to some politicians and journalists who followed the plenary session believed that the head of economy, finance and employment had taxatively denied the existence of some contract of the community with the Montoro Office. For example, the Europa Press agency thus titled its teletype: The community ensures that it has not signed any contract with the key office of the 'Montoro Case'.
It is true that, of course, it is not known if there was any contract signed in the literal sense of the term. But it is also that there were payments from the Community of Madrid to Economic Team: on December 29, 2009, the Governing Council of Esperanza Aguirre validated in its last session of the year “the actions and an expense of 67,280 euros corresponding to the service Analysis of the regulations on dependency, technical assistance for its application and development in the community of Madrid provided by the company Economic SL. ”validates means that an administration agrees to make a payment to a company that has given a service … out of contract. That is, without adjusting to the procedures of the public procurement system.
Today, it is a mystery of which councils, the 314,360 euros declared in total as coming from the Community of Madrid by Economic Team SL in its 347 model, which degrades the relationship of those who in an exercise have paid the declarant amounts greater than 3,005.06 euros. The Civil Guard admits in the aforementioned UCO report that model 347 allows to prove the declared amounts but “ignoring the counseling from which they come.” Those more than 300,000 euros reached the company's accounts through the following sequence: 185,832 euros in 2008; 87,464, in 2009; 21.004, in 2010; and 20,060 in 2011.
What is known – because the official note on the Governing Council of December 29, 2009 details it – is that the validation of those 67,280 euros corresponding to the Analysis of dependency regulations It was approved at the initiative of the Ministry of Family and Social Affairs.
But the black hole of information persists, as evidenced by the telephone conversation maintained Thursday with the socialist deputy Agustín Vinegar, author of the question to Albert. Without previously informing him that the community itself had approved in 2009 a payment to an economic team, this media asked him what he had understood by what was said by the counselor before the plenary of the Madrid Assembly. And this was his answer: “No contract has been signed. At least three legislatures have been rolled back. The message is that there was never any contract.”
Like the socialist, until days ago the autonomic deputy of Mas Madrid and today his secretary of Economy and Fight against Corruption, Eduardo Gutiérrez, interpreted that Albert had denied the existence of contracts, were signed when they were signed. And he interpreted it like that because the exparliamentary I did know journalistic research That in 2019 he uncovered that payment of 67,280 euros for a report that was first awarded by finger by means of negotiated procedure, then it was annulled for reasons never explained and finally it was paid as if no bump had been filed on the road. “The abuse of payments without contracts, mocking administrative legality, is old and persistent in the governments of the PP,” says Eduardo Gutiérrez. “And it is seen,” he adds, “that they use it to hide a deviation of public funds in favor of friendly companies, as is the case of payments made to Mr. Montoro's economic team. You have to ask why the counselor Rocio Albert, of the Government of Ayuso, of the Government of Ayuso.” To questions from Eldiario.es, the Ministry of Finance was limited to emphasizing that “the counselor has not lied.”