The testimony of all the defendants in the Monte Carlo case trial concluded this Tuesday with one point in common: they all deny having decided to hire the companies Inelcon and Señalcon, which invoiced the City Council for 3.6 million euros between 2008 and 2012, without it being clarified how these services were awarded.
“I did not intervene in any contracting procedure” has been the most repeated phrase among the five former councilors and the four “technicians” sitting on the bench. Most have pointed to the mayor, Cándido Reguera, who was also charged in the case and died during the investigation, stating that “he did not delegate” these powers. Thus, they have stated that they raised “a need” or “put on the Mayor's Office table the different events that had to be carried out”, but then their respective departments did not take care of the contracting.
Thus, it has also not been clear who requested quotes from this company, nor why they were only requested from it, nor why there were different invoices for the same act, nor why an electricity company would be used not only for lighting services, but also to hire a “group of dancers”, to organize “children's workshops” or to hold a parade with “batucada, giants and stilt walkers” on Calle Real.
Officials, laborers and sociocultural animators signing as technicians
Regarding the subsequent signing of the invoices, all the former councilors have agreed that they signed them without “checking” them and even without reading them, that they had no training in the matter and that “they trusted” the technicians of their respective departments, who were the ones who previously signed them.
Regarding these “technicians”, three of the four who are accused have stated this Tuesday that they are not really technicians. In the case of José Nieves, who works in Festivities, he has stated that he is actually an official in the City Council. For his part, Miguel Ángel Leal is a “sociocultural animator” (“below the category of official”, he himself specified, when asked by his lawyer). As for Isidro Hernández, he worked as an assistant in the Consistory. “He was a laborer. He was not a technician,” he said.
“And was he authorized to sign documents?” the prosecutor asked him. “No, he wasn't, but...” replied the accused, who according to the Prosecutor's Office approved payments worth more than 58,000 euros. Like him, Miguel Ángel Leal and José Nieves signed invoices to certify that the work had been carried out. They all assured that they did check it, because “the events were carried out”, although they did not “measure the meters of cable” or “count the light bulbs”.
Sáenz, Purchasing technician in addition to comptroller
Like the former Finance Councilor Isabel Martinón (PNL) did on Monday, the four former councilors who have testified this Tuesday -the former Councilor for Sports and Finance José Montelongo (PSOE), the former Councilor for Roads and Works Alberto Morales (PSOE) and the former Councilors for Festivities Eduardo Lasso (PIL) and Víctor San Ginés (PSOE)-, have also referred to the Purchasing area as responsible for contracting, together with the Mayor's Office.
Thus, they have pointed to Carlos Sáenz, who in addition to being comptroller, served as a technician in Purchasing. Sáenz was the first to testify on Monday and confessed to the crimes of prevarication and embezzlement, admitting that as comptroller he had authorized the payment of invoices that were not legal, although he made no reference to his participation in the contracting, nor was he asked about it by any of the parties.
However, during part of the period under investigation there was another technician in charge of Purchasing, Elena Martín, who not only did not take care of these contracts that continued to occur, but even issued up to six reports warning of irregularities in Inelcon's invoices, before being relieved of that position by Cándido Reguera.
The judge, to Eduardo Lasso: "What more warning did you want?"
These reports especially affect two of the investigated, who were in the government when they were issued, shortly after the outbreak of the Unión case in 2009. These are the former Finance Councilor Isabel Martinón -who testified this Monday and confirmed that she read these reports, but that the only measure she adopted was to talk about it with the mayor- and the one who was Councilor for Festivities at that stage, Eduardo Lasso, who has testified this Tuesday, and has suffered the toughest interrogation by one of the magistrates who make up the court, Carlos Vielba.
When answering the prosecutor's questions, Lasso has confirmed that he received these reports -in which his signature appears with the acknowledgment of receipt-, but has assured that he did not read them. “As I signed many documents that they put before me and as I was in charge of many councilorships, I did not look at many of them”, he declared, and then assured that he had not received any warning that contracts were being split or that services that had nothing to do with lighting were being awarded to a company that did not have that corporate purpose.
“They send you a letter, you sign it and receive it. What more warning do you want?” Magistrate Vielba questioned him at the end of the parties' interrogation. “If they didn't tell me verbally that I had to read that, I didn't read it,” the accused stated. “It was addressed to the attention of the Councilor for Festivities. What more do you want them to put?” Vielba insisted.
"No one ever repaired or objected to me"
Regarding Víctor Sanginés, he was Councilor for Festivities after the 2011 elections, when a new government was formed between the PP and the PSOE, again with Cándido Reguera as Mayor. At that time, Elena Martín had already stopped being a Purchasing technician and Carlos Sáenz was back in the position.
“No one ever repaired me, or objected to me, or indicated to me that what we were doing was not correct,” Sanginés has stated, who has insisted that he was not in charge of the contracting, and that if he later signed the invoices -confirming that the service had been provided- it was because “his technician”, José Nieves, had previously done so.
Regarding those that he signed without the signature of this worker, he has stated that at one stage José Nieves was on leave, so the secretary indicated that he could only put his signature. “Did you decide to act as councilor and technician? Would you then check that the service had been provided?” the prosecutor asked him. “Indeed,” the former councilor replied.
Regarding these checks, he has pointed out that they were public party events that he himself attended and in which he even participated. "I had the absolute certainty that the work was done", he has assured, although clarifying that he did not measure "the meters of cable" when it came to electrical installations. And it is that what the prosecutor has insisted on most is asking who was in charge of verifying that everything included in the budget and in the invoice had actually been carried out.
"If the technician's signature was not there, I did not sign"
The other former councilor who has testified this Tuesday has been Alberto Morales, who was responsible for Roads and Works and Tourism in the first year that is being investigated in the case, during the pact between the PSOE and the PIL, just before the government of Cándido Reguera.
Morales has assured that if he signed invoices or expense proposals in favor of Inelcon it was because they were previously signed by the technician, who in his case was Miguel Ángel Leal. “If not, I did not sign them,” he stressed, adding later that he “did not know what an expense proposal was”.
In his case, he has also defended that he did not participate in the contracting process. In addition, when asked by his lawyer, he has stressed that of the 13 invoices that are attributed to him in the Public Prosecutor's Office's indictment, he really only signed one. The rest, he has stated that they were really signed by “Pepe Morales” and by the technician Penélope Tabares, who is another of the accused.
This worker is the only accused who really has the status of technician, as a building engineer hired by the Works department. “I do not intervene in any contracting procedure. It is that, in addition, I do not have the capacity to intervene. I am a building engineer,” she has stated in her statement.
However, her signature does appear in expense budgets (which is the previous document that is prepared to define the need for a service or work, estimate its budget and determine if there are funds to contract it). And in these documents, Inelcon was directly proposed, without providing other budgets.
“We followed the established procedure”, the technician has defended, who has assured that she did not “draft” this document, but rather the Purchasing department, “following the instructions of the technician”, who at that time was also the comptroller.
In the case of an expense proposal signed by her, the prosecutor has stressed that it was prepared after the invoice had been presented, which in fact was mentioned in the document. In this regard, the technician has pointed out that it might not refer to the invoice for a service already provided, but rather to a budget.
“Every time I make an expense proposal, I go to the street to see if there is a need”, she has assured, maintaining that in this case, “the work was not executed”, and defending that that is why she signed the expense proposal, despite the fact that the prosecutor has insisted that the invoice had already been attached to the file.
Works versus services: a 22% difference in the invoice
Regarding the invoices she signed, Penélope Tabares has stated that she checked in all cases that the work had been carried out.
In addition, she has defended that the investigated invoices that depend on her competence were works, and not services. This point is key in the accusation, since it maintains that Inelcon and Señalcon charged a surcharge of 22% on all their invoices, adding 16% for general expenses and 6% for industrial profit, which can only be included in works invoices.
On this point, the former councilors and the rest of the municipal workers who have testified this Tuesday as defendants have stated that they did not know the difference between a works contract and a services contract, nor that this percentage of “industrial profit” could not be charged to the organization of a party event or any event.
After the testimony of all the defendants -who have only responded to the Prosecutor's Office, the magistrates and their defenses, and have refused to answer the private prosecution exercised by the City Council and the popular prosecution exercised by Acción Cívica-, the trial will continue this Wednesday, when the first witnesses are summoned.
