The Central Operational Unit of the Civil Guard has continued this Wednesday the investigation into alleged irregular contracting of public works in the area of the Provincial Council of Almería, derived from the case that instructs the irregular contracting of masks at the start of the pandemic for two million euros. In addition to the arrest of the former number three of the supraprovincial institution, -the first arrested for this case masks- and new records in the Fines City Council, whose mayor and his son were also arrested on Tuesday, the investigations have been expanded to two brothers of the president of the Provincial Council, Javier Aureliano García, according to what was announced Efewhich also in the capital of Almeria.
This brings to 10 those investigated in this alleged plot that would have irregularly awarded public works contracts and services to a network of companies, where its mayor, Rodrigo Sánchez, has been governing since 2003. Throughout this morning, the detainees, the president and first vice president of the Provincial Council, Fernando Giménez – also accused in the case masks-, former vice president Liria, his uncle, the mayor of Fines, the councilor’s son and a technician from the Provincial Council – will be brought to justice and their procedural situation will be determined.
Although Giménez and Sánchez had been charged practically since the investigation into the mask case began four years ago, it was not until this Tuesday’s arrests that the PP of Andalusia, chaired by Juan Manuel Moreno, decided to suspend all party leaders involved in this second phase of the investigation from militancy. Last night Moreno was referring to this case during the presentation of his memoirs in Madrid for . The president of the Board, who was accompanied by the former vice president of the Government, Mariano Rajoy, and by the leader of his party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, promised “forcefulness” “if it is proven that there is corruption”, although he asked to wait until this Thursday to know the decision of the judge investigating the case.
Moreno was at an event in Almería with García himself, an event held in one of the auditoriums that the president of the Provincial Council has under his own name in Balanegra, the president’s hometown. Two weeks earlier, the popular leader had included García in his regional Executive as a member. Two days later, he was arrested by the UCO as part of an investigation for irregular hiring.
The Provincial Council of Almería has been in the spotlight for decades of investigations into alleged irregular contracts, most of them linked to the construction company Hispano Almería, the contractor of the works, and also linked to alleged irregular financing of the PP of Almería, since the time when Luis Rogelio Rodríguez-Comendador presided over the supra-municipal entity, which that party has governed uninterruptedly since 1995 – with the arrival of Rodríguez-Comendador – until now, except between 1999 and 2003. Almost all of these cases, as Luis Montoya, a member of the Mediterranean Anti-Corruption and Transparency Association (Amayat), one of the main promoters of these investigations, recalls, have been archived or are at a standstill, “after instructions based on Udef reports, very long, chopped up and with many technicians and municipal officials involved,” he recalls.
Since the time of Rodríguez-Comendador, now in the Senate, “there has been coincidence between the presidency of the Provincial Council, that of the Popular Party in the province and, in parallel, in the municipalities of which they were mayors,” says Montoya, also referring to G from 2004 to 2021. García was his vice president and Giménez was Amat’s chief of staff. Both reached the top of the Provincial Council, along with Liria, when the Roqueño councilor abandoned his duties at the head of that institution. “It is a trio that has always acted in harmony,” maintains a source familiar with the friendship and relationship between the three leaders of the Provincial Council now imprisoned.
“The provincial councils have investment plans and they are the ones that allocate the majority of the funds to small town councils with a small budget, it is a way to control and keep these municipalities happy and then guarantee the vote, this is how the Provincial Council has worked in Almería since the PP has been in place,” says Montoya who, through Amayat, has described this modus operandi in many of the judicial investigations that have developed around alleged irregularities in the awarding of public works. “And many of these companies are always linked to relatives of PP politicians or are managed by them,” he adds.
Until now and despite the fact that the majority of cases in which corruption was investigated were concentrated in Almería, Moreno had not touched the provincial power structure in a formation that never supported him when he landed in Andalusia to take the reins of the party. “It was an electoral fiefdom, apparently well-oiled,” maintains that same source. “Until now the cases that were investigated had not gone beyond some accusation, but all the leaders who were suspected of having never appeared as investigated in the cases, one could think that the same would happen with this case, after so much time of investigation,” says the same interlocutor. Now, members of the president’s entourage say, things are going to be different. “Heads will roll, if they have to,” they warn.
