He doesn't "have to know" what an electrical installation costs. Nor whether the work "is done or not done". Even, during his statement as a defendant in the trial of piece 13 of the Unión case, the auditor of Arrecife, Carlos Sáenz, went so far as to say that he didn't even have to audit the invoices of the owner of Proselan, José Daniel Hernández, before endorsing the payment. And it is that, according to the auditor, the law does not oblige him to do so, because it was a "minor contract" (the limit of minor contracts that can be awarded without a tender is 18,000 euros in the case of services, which is what the Prosecutor's Office understands that there was in this case, and 50,000 euros in the case of works contracts, which is what the auditor defends were the alleged works of Proselan). In any case, the Prosecutor's Office considers that even the invoices for minor contracts must be audited by the auditor.
In total, the Arrecife City Council paid this businessman ten invoices on December 26, 2008 (five in his name and five in the name of the company), which totaled 250,000 euros for alleged electricity work for 5 parties. However, the treasurer declared that "he did not find it strange" that so many invoices appeared together for external services, nor that half of those invoices were for assembly work and the other half for disassembly work. Not even that some invoices (those for assembly) were in the name of José Daniel Hernández and the others (those for disassembly) in the name of Proselan.
"The auditor can object, but when there is a just cause," Carlos Sáenz assured during his statement, for whom the Prosecutor's Office is asking for six years in prison in this case for the continued crimes of embezzlement of public funds, fraud and malfeasance, for having consented to these payments. The prosecutor, Ignacio Stampa, expressly asked him about the role of the City Council treasurer and whether he had "disputed" the payment of these invoices. "I think our treasurer is constantly arguing," the auditor replied. "Arguing to annoy?" the prosecutor then asked him. Afterwards, Sáenz clarified that "in this specific case" (of the payments to Proselan), he does not remember the treasurer "arguing anything".
The treasurer warned that there was a lack of "foundation"
However, former councilor José Miguel Rodríguez, also accused in the case, declared that the treasurer warned him that the payment orders "had to come with more foundation, because they were very simple". The former councilor, who confessed to having "contributed to embezzling" public money by signing those invoices, explained that he did so because of the auditor. "Before, he had consented to others in the same way, so that I or my party could profit," declared Rodríguez, who even spoke of a "modus operandi" for the payment of fraudulent invoices, in which whoever "had to be there always was Carlos Sáenz" (in addition to being accused in this and another piece of the Unión case, Sáenz is the main defendant in the Montecarlo case).
For his part, the treasurer, Antonio Cabrera Panasco, who testified as a witness in this trial, assured that in the case of payments to the owner of Proselan, he only saw "the last sheet, the payment order, because all the others were removed". According to him, this was a common occurrence during the year 2008. Until then, the order "arrived more complete", but at that time they did not send him the files but only that last document, which is what obliges him, as treasurer, to make the payment.
"If the payment order is signed, it is mandatory for the treasurer to comply," explained Cabrera Panasco, who declared that the person who is entrusted with the mission of auditing the payments that are made is the auditor, regardless of the amount of the contract. In this case, there was not even a contract signed with José Daniel Hernández or with Proselan, but the auditor defended that "according to the law, the invoice is equivalent to a contract".
"The treasurer usurped functions that did not correspond to him"
During his statement, Carlos Sáenz went so far as to say that the treasurer "constantly usurped functions that did not correspond to him", because "in the body of officials, each one has his mission". "He kept files whose custody corresponds to the Intervention", Sáenz went on to say.
Asked if he had "stolen" documents from the Treasury related to the Unión case, the auditor replied that "the custody of documents" "corresponds" to him. "If someone has kept files that do not correspond to them, it has not been me," he said. Then, he went on to talk about a "theft of documents" linked to this case, because according to him, the file was complete when the payment was authorized (during the investigation he declared that it was not complete, but in the trial he stated that he did not remember having made that statement).
"And didn't you report that theft of documents?" the prosecutor asked him. "No," Carlos Sáenz began by answering. "I'm calm. I'm calm because you have them," he added later. "Are you saying that the prosecutor has stolen them? Do we deduce testimony?" the judge presiding over the Chamber interrupted him, warning him of what his statement implied, to which the auditor rectified and replied that no.
"Are you confusing cases in which you are charged?" the prosecutor, Ignacio Stampa, then asked him, who could be referring to the Montecarlo case. That case, which also investigates alleged crimes of embezzlement of public funds, was initiated by an anonymous complaint that was filed with the Prosecutor's Office, warning of alleged illegalities in payment files of the Arrecife City Council. And in both that case and the Unión Case, the Courts have been claiming different files from the Consistory within the investigation.
Retention of credit after making the expense
In the trial, Carlos Sáenz said that he "does not remember" having said during the investigation that the files of those payments "were not complete", and he also did not remember if he had previously made a retention of credit for the payments to Proselan. "The law does not define it as mandatory. It is a prevention. It is not of major importance," he insisted.
For the 10 invoices that were paid in December 2018, Sáenz had not previously made a retention of credit, which is done when signing a contract (or, in this case, when making a "verbal" order and accepting the budget). However, for the other four invoices that José Daniel Hernández presented in 2009, that retention of credit was made, but a posteriori. In fact, Carlos Sáenz made that retention of credit when the parties in which Hernández had supposedly provided his services had already passed.
"How can you sign a retention of credit of more than 97,000 euros for work already done, for an expense that the City Council has already made?" the prosecutor asked him. "It doesn't make sense," the auditor ended up answering, when they showed him the document in the trial. In the case of those last four invoices, they were not collected because the City Council blocked the payments after they were detected by the Festivals area, after the outbreak of Operation Unión.
José Miguel Rodríguez "consented"
Despite the fact that the alleged work carried out corresponded to the Festivals area, the person who made the order was another of the accused, the head of the Technical Office, Rafael Arrocha, while the expense was charged to the Councilorship of José Miguel Rodríguez, who was in charge of Finance and Urban Planning. "I pointed out that Festivals always spent the items. The councilor said that there was a budget in his area. He consented. He authorizes me to charge it. He had an item that he had practically not touched during the year," explained the auditor to justify that those invoices were charged to a Councilorship, that of Rodríguez, which had nothing to do with the Festivals area.
According to Carlos Sáenz, that Councilorship "does not want more than the actions to be charged to its area", so it was "usual" for other areas to assume that type of cost. "I don't know about the Finance Councilorship, but other areas do," he replied to questions from the prosecution, maintaining that he has signed "many" similar payment orders. It should be remembered that it was the Festivals Councilorship itself that stopped the payments to Proselan and reported what happened in 2009, after detecting these invoices.
A parallel record of invoices in the Intervention
Sáenz also had to answer about the parallel record of invoices that existed in the Intervention, as was already highlighted in the first trial of the Unión case, for the payments to Francisco Rodríguez Batllori. Although the invoices must enter through the General Registry of the City Council, several technicians confirmed in that trial that in the Intervention a "manual registry" was made, giving entry to certain invoices. "Is it true that the secretary requisitioned that stamp afterwards, suppressed it?" the prosecutor asked the auditor, who did not finish specifying his answer and concluded by saying that this is "within the competences of the Secretariat".
Regarding the first statement he gave in the Courts during the investigation of this case, Carlos Sáenz said during the trial that he was not going to ratify it. "I do not agree at all," he began by stating, and then added that he maintains that statement, but "with reservations", since he considers that "what he said was not reflected correctly" and that there were "technical issues that were not put well or with due precision".
"And why did you sign the record of the statement then?" they asked him. "They did not explain to me the importance of signing it," the auditor replied, to which the prosecutor asked him "if he also signed the invoices of Proselan in the same way".