“I didn't look at the companies, nor did I look at the amounts. I only limited myself to signing.” That is what the former Finance Councilor of the Arrecife City Council, Isabel Martinón, declared during her statement as accused in the first session of the Montecarlo case trial, for alleged embezzlement of public funds in payments to Inelcon and Señalcon.
“I never went to examine the invoices. I'm seeing them now”, the former PNL councilor insisted, when the prosecutor asked her to show some of the invoices she authorized.
During her statement, Martinón defended that she “was not a technician”, but a councilor, and that she “knew nothing about public finances or administrative law” when she was appointed to lead the Council's Finance area in December 2009, after the outbreak of Operation Unión.
“But I was very calm because I had two technicians. I thought, they will warn me if there is something”, added Martinón. However, she also acknowledged that she did receive warnings from a City Council technician, specifically from the head of the Purchasing area, Elena Martín, who sent her up to six reports warning of irregularities in the invoices.
“She slipped those writings among the huge piles that I had to sign every day,” said Isabel Martinón, who reproached the official for her actions, because on the same day she presented another writing to the mayor, Cándido Reguera, asking to leave the Purchasing area “because she couldn't handle the department.”
“You know that and you abandon and pass the hot potato to whoever comes next?”, questioned the former councilor.
Among other things, the technician warned in those writings that there was no credit proposal and that other budgets had not been requested, but also that contracts were being split (to avoid exceeding the limit that requires them to be put out to tender) and that “a company not qualified for it had been proposed.” And it is that although Inelcon is an electricity company and Señalcon is a traffic light and signage company, they were also awarded services for organizing activities at different festivals, such as children's workshops and hiring batucadas and animation staff.
“If you know you are going to be relieved, you are responsible for going to the comptroller”
“When you saw those writings, did you check the invoices?” the prosecutor asked her. “I understood that the technician left them stored in a drawer,” she replied. However, after the mayor removed that competence from Elena Martín and delegated it to the comptroller, who also became a Purchasing technician, they ended up being paid.
“If you already know that you are going to be relieved of your position, you are responsible for going to the comptroller asking to stop those files,” added Isabel Martinón, again attacking the technician.
In addition, she insisted that all the invoices she signed already bore the comptroller's signature. “It was assumed that the prior audit work had already been done,” she defended.
“And what do you think the councilor's signature is for?” the prosecutor asked her again. “For the proper functioning of the public administration,” added the accused, after a few moments of silence. Afterwards, she insisted again that they had “many contracts” and invoices to sign daily.
“But in view of the technician's reports, didn't you pay special attention to see if it was true?” the prosecutor insisted. “No, that work did not correspond to me. It was the comptroller's job. I was not a technician,” she replied again, specifying that she is a lawyer by profession, but not “specialized in administrative law,” but in civil law.
“Couldn't you have had any doubts?”
After finishing the interrogation - in which she only answered questions from the prosecutor and her own lawyer, refusing to answer the popular accusation and the private accusation, exercised by the Arrecife City Council - the magistrate who presides over the Chamber addressed her. He began by asking her if she signed more payments to Inelcon and Señalcon after reading the reports from technician Elena Martín, and if “she couldn't have had any doubts.”
“The technician presented that and two days later she dropped the potato on the rest,” the accused reiterated. “If she sits with me and says, Isabel, be careful with this, I audit those files. I would have sat down with Elena Martín and Carlos Sáenz, to ask, what is happening?” she added.
“But did you do anything?” the magistrate insisted. “I reported to the mayor, as head of the contracting body”, she replied. In that conversation, according to Martinón, Cándido Reguera told her that both he and the comptroller had received those writings. And, according to her version, the only thing the mayor told her was: “Nothing, don't worry. If it comes to you already with the comptroller's signature, it means that all the irregularities have already been corrected.”
"They asked me for a budget and I did it"
During the first session of the trial, which began with preliminary issues and with the confession of the former comptroller Carlos Sáenz, only two other defendants have testified, out of the 11 who are in the dock. The first was Isabel Martinón and the next was businessman Carlos Lemes, administrator of Inelcon and Señalcon.
"They asked me for a budget and it was done. And if they gave us the contract, it was executed," the businessman defended. “I didn't know about minor contracts or major contracts”, he replied to the prosecutor, when she asked him if the services that were awarded to him ever went out to tender, as required by law when certain amounts are exceeded.
Thus, he denied that he split invoices to evade the procedure, and defended, for example, the numerous independent payments he received for traffic light repairs, pointing out that they called them every time there was a breakdown. “It was a chaos,” he said, referring to the state of the capital's traffic lights.
Regarding the multiple invoices related to festivals, he replied that each one was due to different concepts, including fireworks at the festivities in each neighborhood.
The prosecutor also asked him about other invoices for services that had nothing to do with electricity, with concepts such as “batucada, giants and big heads on Calle Real”. “Probably because there was lighting,” Lemes began by answering. However, when the prosecutor insisted that this did not appear in the invoice concept, he admitted that some “have nothing to do with lighting.”
“We wanted to expand the business and we said: Well, maybe we can do this too”, the businessman maintained.
Regarding who contacted his companies from the City Council to offer them those contracts - which were not put out to tender and in most cases, other budgets were not requested either - he stated that he does not know. “It would be administrative staff from the area. They called the office and the girls made budgets,” he replied.
"I have always put it like this and nobody has said anything to me"
In addition to the alleged splitting of contracts, the case also investigates the payment for services not provided and the possible existence of inflated invoices, among other things, charging 22% to the amount. For this, they added 16% for general expenses and 6% for industrial profit, which is something that is applied in construction invoices, but not for services, as was this case.
“I have always put them and nobody has said anything to me,” Lemes replied when asked about it.
Like Isabel Martinón, Lemes refused to answer the accusations and only answered the prosecutor, his lawyer and the magistrates. In this case, one of them asked him if in the installation contracts they were not required by law to carry out maintenance for one year, so they could not have charged invoices for that concept later. "It's different," Carlos Lemes replied. When the judge insisted again, he added that in that first year they did a "supervision", but that if a maintenance job was required, "another budget" was made.
When asked by his lawyer, the businessman pointed out that there are no other companies on the island that do the same as Señalcon. And with respect to Inelcon, he pointed out that it is "one of the most important in the field."
During his statement, he also stressed that they already had "a lot of work" at that time, to which the prosecutor asked him why they were still working for the City Council, if he also said that he "did not charge promptly" for the services he provided for the Council. "Well, I don't know. Whenever someone asked us for a budget, we sent it," he replied.
With his statement, the first day of the trial has come to an end, which will continue this Tuesday and Wednesday with the statement of the rest of the accused. Afterwards, it will continue in two weeks and in several more days, extending until the month of June.
