The Provincial Council of Almería held a monographic and extraordinary plenary session this morning at the request of the PSOE to address the arrests, which occurred last week, of the former president and former vice-president of the entity, Javier Aureliano García and Francisco Giménez, in the framework of the investigation for alleged irregular hiring which dates back to 2016 and is part of the PSOE investigation case masksstarted in 2021. Both former PP leaders were released on charges of corruption, embezzlement of public funds, money laundering, influence peddling and corruption in public procurement and submitted their resignations from their positions the next day. During the session, interim president Ángel Escobar, in addition to vehemently defending the presumption of innocence of his former party colleagues, offered the socialist group and Vox access to “all the files of the Provincial Council of all sectors”, as well as a commission of inquiry, “for reasons of transparency”.
The plenary session became an exchange of reproaches on the corruption cases affecting the PP – underlined directly in the conspiracy on the alleged bribes of between 200,000 and 400,000 euros for a healthcare equipment contract worth two million and which now extends to the awarding of smaller, allegedly fraudulent contracts extending until 2016, as García’s lawyer explained to this newspaper last week – and the PSOE, as he said. said in turn the spokesperson of the popular people of Almería in the Provincial Council, Carlos Sánchez. “We avoided a media circus,” the interim president said at the end of the session, after just over an hour and a quarter.
“The presumption of innocence is a guarantee, a fundamental right that has been violated and defamed. Every possibility of defense has been left on the ground,” said Escobar, at the end of the debate, after maintaining that the former president and vice-president of the Provincial Council exercised their functions “with honesty”. After explaining that it is not possible to request an external control of the institute, as Vox claimed, the interim president announced that he had offered, in addition to an infestation commission, to the PSOE and the far-right party “that they can access all the dossiers in all sectors, minor works, contracts”, so that “in case of any indication they do not hesitate the slightest hesitation in bringing it to the attention of the judicial authorities, regardless of who is interested”.
First, the plenary session got entangled in the already known and you even morewhen the majority parties discuss corruption “Let’s not play dumb. We all knew it and we have been saying it since 2021”, began the deputy spokesperson of the PSOE, Juan Manuel del Real, referring to the first arrest in relation to the case maskson June 15, 2021, by the then third vice-president of the Provincial Council, Óscar Liria. “The political responsibilities have not been clarified, but neither have the criminal ones”, he underlined on the fact that in recent hours the number two of the entity has been accused and on the latest arrests. “The UCO agrees that the citizen Javier Aureliano García was the head of a criminal network to use the public contracts of this institution and obtain bribes and commissions,” he declared, also holding the Prime Minister responsible for this inertia during these four years: “The government of Juan Manuel Moreno was not prompt in 21st against corruption in the province of Almería and that is not the case now. Moreno has become complicit in it.”
The socialist spokesperson also underlined that the PP did not act against the mayor of Tíjola and also a provincial deputy, José Juan Martínez, investigated last week for irregular counterfeiting in his capacity as director of the Tagilis construction company – from which other companies in the alleged lot allegedly derived the execution of the awarded works -, and on whom the Almería Prosecutor’s Office is also investigating for alleged urban and economic irregularities linked to the construction of a sports complex, as advanced by the Efe Agency just this morning. “Does the UCO have to stop him in order to take action?” asked Del Real, who warned the PP that “a lot needs to be cleaned up”, alluding to the suspicions of corruption that have loomed since the time of Gabriel Amat, mayor of Roquetas and president of the Provincial Council from 2011 to December 2018, the period in which the awards in the second phase of the case masks.
The PP spokesperson did not wait to go on the counterattack by tackling the corruption cases affecting the PSOE in that province. “In 200 years of history, only one deputy has been convicted and is in prison, he is the vice president of the Socialist Provincial Council sentenced to eight years in prison,” Sánchez said, referring to Luis Pérez and his involvement in the affair. invoice case. “Neither García nor Aureliano have been tried or prosecuted,” he added, listing other investigated or reported cases of socialist accusations in the municipalities of La Garrucha, Lubrín, Carboneras, Mojácar or Níjar, with which the provincial deputy of that municipality, Esperanza Pérez, he was particularly harsh. “They can’t talk about corruption,” he snapped at Andalusia’s PSOE, after accusing them of asking for a plenary session to “reconcile everything”.
Who got a piece of this give and take on who is the sample of corruption in the province of Almería was Vox which, as usual in these cases, was equidistant from both parties. “What happened in the Provincial Council is not a mistake, it is a model: prizes that respect the law to a minimum and in which the same people always participate. PP and PSOE are two sides of the same coin,” said ultra party deputy Pedro Manuel Aguera.
This was the first plenary session without García at the helm since he took office in 2019. This morning both he and his colleague resigned. number two, Therefore, the 10-day deadline for the appointment of the new president of the Provincial Council of Almería will begin on Monday. A task in which, as in the case of the new general secretary of the PP of Almería, the party leadership is carrying out a search with a magnifying glass to avoid appointing someone accused or suspected of irregular behavior and who, at the same time, enjoys the trust of the new president of the party, Ramón Fernández Pacheco – after the suspension from militancy of García, who had been president since June 2021, just when the revolt broke out. case masks. Almería PP sources tell this newspaper that there is no rush to confirm his successor.
Fernández Pacheco’s duties as Minister of Agriculture prevent him from having exhaustive control of the daily life of a key group to consolidate the absolute majority desired by Moreno in the community and whose hegemony in that territory has slowed the rise of Vox. This afternoon, the Provincial Board of Directors of the PP of Almería meets in Roquetas de Mar, where the party’s honorary president, Gabriel Amat, has governed with a firm hand since 1995.
