"I cannot control what the councilors did outside of my department." That has been one of the phrases that Elena Martín, who was responsible for the Contracting Office of the Arrecife City Council, has repeated the most during her statement as accused in the trial for piece 12 of the Unión case. In that statement, Dimas Martín's daughter has stated that of 104 files investigated in this case, only two were made from Contracting and the rest from the Purchasing department, pointing out that both areas were then separate and had "no type of link."
"They will know what they process. I know what I process in Contracting," she defended, despite the fact that her signature also appears on some of the files managed from Purchasing, as she was acting as accidental secretary at that time. "I don't know if a councilor went through Purchasing. When I go to work, I go to my office. I don't meet with the councilors," she insisted, to which the prosecutor responded by reminding her of the conversation that was heard on the second day of the trial between her and the councilor Ubaldo Becerra, and then pointing out that, according to her words, "it seems she lives in an urn."
In addition, the prosecutor has emphasized that in that conversation in which they were talking about the General Plan of Arrecife, Becerra referred to Elena's father, Dimas Martín, as "the boss," telling her that he had already spoken to him about the matter. "Ubaldo can have whoever he wants as boss. For me, the boss was the head of the Technical Office", the official has replied, thus denying that she knew that they were referring to her father in that way. "I understood the boss to be Mr. Arrocha," she has assured.
"I don't go on the City Council's website, I'm not interested"
"I don't know how far apart the offices are, but this is not the City Council of Madrid," Javier Ródenas stressed, after listening again to the official repeating that she was unaware of both the awarded contracts -in one of the cases for a total value of one million euros to the same businessman-, and whether the works were carried out or not.
"I don't have to know," she pointed out in this regard, adding that she also did not see the information published on the City Council's website about these contracts. "I don't go on the City Council's website. I'm not interested," she stated. In addition, she has also defended that she did not know if the works were carried out or not because she does not live in Arrecife. "I come to work and because I have no other choice," she stated, using the same argument that she later reiterated in response to questions from the popular accusation. "I have the healthy habit of not coming to Arrecife, I don't like coming. I come to work and that's it", she maintained. And she also stated that she "did not notice" if the trees were finally planted in a project whose drafting was contracted from her department.
Regarding that project, former councilor Ubaldo Becerra confessed last Wednesday that three offers were presented and that Elena Martín told him: "Tell me which one of these three you want." "No, it's not like that," the official said this Monday, denying Becerra's statement. According to her, when the councilor presented her with the three offers, he told her "no, that it had to go out to an open public contracting procedure." And Elena Martín has assured that the matter "was stopped there," although the truth is that the work was finally awarded to the company La Palmita, owned by one of the businessmen accused in this case and who has confessed to paying bribes.
"It's as crude as that, the offers were identical"
"Let's be clear, from what has been seen in the document, it was contracted by Purchasing," Elena Martín has argued again, who has reiterated that she only participated in the awarding of the drafting of that project -which was carried out by the same businessman to whom the work was later given-, but not in the awarding of the execution of the project itself. "He can say what he wants," she said about Ubaldo Becerra's statement. "Councilors often want to contract and then the procedures do not follow their course, it is not contracted. Ubaldo did not like what I told him and it was stopped," she has repeated, assuring that she did not find out that it had finally been awarded. "I don't live in Arrecife. I come to work and because I have no other choice," she added then as an explanation. Regarding how the offers that had been in her hands arrived at Purchasing, she has pointed out that she does not know if they were copies or even if different ones were provided.
Regarding those offers that Ubaldo Becerra presented to her, the prosecutor has asked her if at the time she realized that the three were identical -Becerra himself has recognized that behind all of them was the same businessman-, but Elena Martín has replied that she does not remember if she looked at them then. However, she has clarified that she has now done so. "It's as crude as that, they were identical," she stated. "Do you recognize that it was crude?" the prosecutor then asked her. "A little," she replied. For his part, Becerra declared last week that it "was not really a public tender" and that "Elena consented to it."
"After what happened, we have become more demanding"
In her statement, Elena Martín has clarified that she was not designated as head of Contracting nor did she charge for it, although the truth is that in practice she was the highest responsible for the department. Regarding her functions, she has stated that they were "to try to ensure that the procedures had the legal course."
In this regard, she has recognized that now, after what happened with the Unión case, they have become "more demanding." And it is that, among other things, she has pointed out that then not even a report of need was presented in writing to justify the signing of a minor contract.
"Now we ask for some things in writing. Before they presented them sometimes, but in all honesty we did not demand it," she has declared, maintaining that for those minor contracts "the approval of the expense and the presentation of the invoices were enough."
"The only thing I can give you is a crappy specification"
The prosecutor has also asked Elena Martín about that conversation she had with Ubaldo Becerra about the General Plan, in which the councilor commissioned her to draw up a specification to put the progress of that document out to tender. At that time, as the instruction highlighted and Ubaldo Becerra has recognized, they intended to award it directly to Pedro Luna. "He won't have to do anything, we're going to give him everything done," Dimas Martín explained in a conversation. And to ensure that he was awarded the contract, the plan was to put it out to tender for 60 million so that "no one else" would present themselves.
In the middle of that operation that finally did not prosper, the conversation between Ubaldo Becerra and Elena Martín took place. "The only thing I can give you is a crappy specification," the technician warned when the councilor demanded a document that he could present at a meeting he had the next day. To attend to his request, Martín proposed using a "basic" specification and "copying" the technical conditions that were collected for the previous General Plan, since even the requirements that the progress should meet had not been defined. "I'll give it to you to see if it passes," the official ended up saying.
In her statement, Elena Martín has not denied that conversation and has even recognized that she made "a crappy" specification. According to what she has pointed out, Ubaldo Becerra "had been asking for it for months" and she "was stalling" because she "did not have time to make specifications." Finally, when that call occurred because Becerra had a meeting the next day in Gran Canaria, she agreed to do it with a "copy and paste" of the previous Plan, although she has defended that that was "almost wet paper," a "draft" that "stayed there."
Smiles, kiss and congratulations from Dimas, Rosa and Fabián
Regarding the meetings that her father held with Pedro Luna and other architects and the alleged attempt to rig the awarding of the drafting of the Plan, she has assured that she was unaware of it. "I have no knowledge of meetings or that anything of that was done," Elena Martín has assured, for whom the Prosecutor's Office is asking for 2 years of prison and 20 years of disqualification for crimes of administrative prevarication and revelation of privileged information with serious damage to the public cause and fraud to the administration. In addition, she has also responded "I don't know" when they have asked her if she knew how that specification then came into her father's hands.
After her statement, Elena Martín has returned to sit on the bench next to a smiling Dimas Martín, to whom she first shook hands and then even kissed. In addition, another of the accused, Juan Francisco Rosa, has made a gesture with his hand as a congratulation to Elena Martín for her statement, and the same has been done from the public by her brother, Fabián Martín, who is attending the trial from the first day. Dimas Martín has turned towards him after listening to his daughter's statement and a "very good" could be read on his lips, while he looked at Fabián, who nodded and also made a gesture of approval.
