Anti-corruption asks to file the investigation into the alleged finalist donations to the 'box b' of the PP

Prosecutor's Office takes this step after receiving a latest report from the Treasury where no irregularities are detected

MADRID, 15 Dic. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office has asked the judge of the National Court (AN) Santiago Pedraz to archive the investigation into the alleged donations made by businessmen to the 'box b' of the PP to obtain certain public contracts, after the General Intervention of the Administration of the State (IGAE) issued a last report where no irregularities were detected in the adjudication processes.

According to legal sources consulted by Europa Press, the prosecutor in the case, Antonio Romeral, requested it last week from the head of the Central Court of Instruction Number 5 after receiving the conclusions of the IGAE.

The report, dated November 4, analyzes over 94 pages the processing of the files to award various public contracts from the Ministries of Defense, Development and Environment, the Public Land Entity (SEPES) or AENA, among others, without identifying irregularities contrary to the regulations of the time.

However, this report contrasts with those that the National Court has received in recent years. Thus, in a previous one from December 16, 2021, the Treasury technicians highlighted "very notable deviations" in a contract awarded in 2003 by the Ministry of the Environment to Constructora Hispánica SA, a company investigated in the 'Gürtel' plot .

Specifically, it indicated that the contract for the recovery and environmental restoration of the Marismas del Joyel, in the natural reserve of the Marismas de Santoña y Noja (Cantabria), which dates back to March 25, 2003, was closed for an amount of 1,492,152 euros. The IGAE observed an extra cost of 28,633.39 euros, 1.74% of the contract, which already had a modified 9.99%, so it would exceed the limit percentage and would have required the report from the Services Inspection.

The case, known as the "finalist commissions", was initiated by Judge Pablo Ruz in 2013, but he closed it two years later when he saw no criminal evidence other than the payment of the reform of the "popular" headquarters in Genoa with those off-the-books funds. However, what was revealed by the leader of the 'Gürtel', Francisco Correa, during the trial for the first period of the corrupt plot allowed it to be reactivated.

The former treasurer of the PP Luis Bárcenas, who until then had denied it, confessed in a letter sent to the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office that some of the donations made were seeking awards. In his statement of July 16, 2021 before Pedraz, he directly implicated all the PP Ministers of Development and Environment by stating that they dealt with businessmen who contributed to this alleged unofficial accounting.

He recounted a specific episode that his predecessor in the PP Treasury, the late Álvaro Lapuerta, would have transmitted to him in his day. According to Bárcenas, Lapuerta went to the general director of State Highways and the then minister, Francisco Álvarez Cascos, scolded him, indicating that he should always contact him for such matters.

That of the former 'popular' treasurer was the last statement before Pedraz ended the investigation phase on July 29, 2021. Since then, the judge has been waiting to receive the latest report from the IGAE to decide the future of the cause.