Former PSOE Organization Secretary Santos Cerdán played the role of alleged “liaison” between the construction company Acciona and the Ministry of Transport led by José Luis Ábalos to obtain millionaire public works contracts in exchange for commissions. Cerdán and his business partner, Antxon Alonso, participated in the plot; former minister Ábalos; the trusted man of both, Koldo García, and administrator of the construction company. Cerdán allegedly obtained the work for Acciona and Acciona then contracted a company owned by Cerdán and Alonso, Servinabar, for an amount equal to 2% of the premium. During the entire period investigated, at least 6.7 million euros.
The latest report provided by the Guardia Civil to the investigating judge of the Supreme Court is a severe blow to any attempt to minimize the seriousness of the facts investigated. If the telephone recordings already left little room for Cerdán’s political defense – to the point that the PSOE immediately expelled him – the evidence now provided is overwhelming. According to the police report, the alleged plot had been underway since 2015, when Cerdán was secretary of the Organization in Navarra. Access to the Spanish government allowed the expansion of the operation.
The explosive news was released the day before the magistrate decreed the provisional release of Cerdán, whose attempts to discredit the investigation as a political hunt were unsuccessful. Today we know what the judge suspected when on June 30, as soon as his statement was taken, he sent him to prison due to the risk of destroying the evidence. Now the instructor understands that there is no longer any risk and releases him with charges. They are balanced, solid and well-reasoned decisions. Nothing like the creative instructions and à la carte procedural law applied in other high-profile political cases.
The rough modus operandi stealing from the State – repeated over and over again with different names, administrations and parties – once again puts citizens in front of the amazement of seeing that the usual corruption is rampant. And no real preventive controls have ever been established to raise the alarm in the event of accounting irregularities. Cerdán was naturally interested in public works without having any authority to justify it.
It must be remembered that the conspiracy was revealed on the basis of a mask contract during the pandemic, when the emergency led to easing controls on public procurement. For another mask purchase contract, the former president, the former vice-president of the Provincial Council of Almería and a mayor, all from the PP, were arrested yesterday. In 2020 alone, 22,000 Covid-related contracts worth 6.4 billion euros were signed in Spain, without the usual supervision rules. From the call Koldo case, An apparent series of shady influence maneuvers by careerists in power has already emerged, an alleged millionaire corruption plot operating from the heart of the Socialist Party. Yesterday the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office asked for 24 years in prison for former minister Ábalos, who preceded Cerdán in the organization’s secretariat.
The political damage for the PSOE is evident. The two main people involved in the conspiracy held the reins of Ferraz for a total of eight years, so the suspicion of a hypothetical mix between their desire for personal profit and the training accounts can only be dissipated with maximum transparency. Society – rightly outraged by a corruption that, whoever governs, seems destined to parasitize the public coffers – would not understand the attempt to diminish the importance of this case.
