The president of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, María Dolores Corujo, states that during her appearance in the Plenary session this Monday she "uncovered" the "connivance of the former president of the First Island Institution, Pedro San Ginés, with his friend, the lawyer Ignacio Calatayud, which allowed the latter to collect one million euros from Inalsa and the Consortium." “He was aware of everything,” Corujo explained, pointing out that in her speech she "dismantled the plot hatched by both to try to hide this authentic scandal.”
Corujo detailed the series of events that occurred after a “surprising visit from Ignacio Calatayud shortly after taking office as President.” The doubts that arose, Corujo explains, "served to initiate an investigation that has unmasked the authentic reality", "not the one that Pedro San Ginés wants to sell, who lies when he says that the million euros charged by Calatayud corresponds to court costs." The president clarified that the costs "are always the client's and never the lawyer's, as categorically stated by the Supreme Court and is now consolidated jurisprudence." So "every time he repeats that Calatayud did not charge Inalsa but charged the costs, he will be acknowledging that his friend appropriated public money with his connivance," she says.
The president proved with judicial documentation that Calatayud and the lawyers of the opposing party "reached a transactional agreement for the settlement of costs", and "that it was not the judge who set them, as San Ginés insists, who does not blush when lying." "The court did not set or authorize anything," Corujo insisted, "but merely approved the transactions because it was told that the parties had agreed to them."
"San Ginés could have immediately come out to express his dismay and rejection to public opinion; he could have asked for an investigation to shed light on the matter, but he preferred to defend Calatayud and accuse me of lying and threaten to accuse me of defamation. In some way, this attitude cleared up the doubt of whether he was an accomplice or whether Calatayud had taken advantage of his friendship,” the president considers.
Corujo held the former president responsible for "grossly violating all contracting rules,” since, she says, "he accepted the budgets of his lawyer-friend verbally, without any contract or file." “He allowed him to intervene irregularly in the insolvency proceedings and appear in five insolvency incidents, in one of them, also on behalf of the Consortium. The latter exposes San Ginés and shows that he is lying when he denies his responsibility in the contracting of the incidents since the Consortium was not in insolvency proceedings and, therefore, the judicial administrators could not give their approval.”
Finally, the president of the Cabildo stated that "Calatayud appeared in only five of the more than twenty incidents that occurred during the creditors' meeting", "curiously those in which there could be juicy costs. And he appeared clandestinely, in order to appropriate them with the knowledge and connivance of Pedro San Ginés,” Corujo revealed.
"Unanswered questions"
The president pointed out that San Ginés could dispel the doubts "by answering a handful of questions", but "however, he feels more comfortable in the opacity, the mess and the insult that characterized his presidency."
"It is clear that he has lied and a lot, that he has hidden too much. The only one who knew about the million-dollar bonanza was Pedro San Ginés, who has hidden it even from his own people, who would not have understood why a lawyer whose only merit was being his friend was benefiting in such an obscene way. A friend, by the way, who has cost us a fortune and has made us lose another," Corujo pointed out.
"However, the saddest, most amazing and shameful thing is that he hired his friend irregularly at the same time that he denounced innocent people before the UCO and the court, to whom he gave contracting lessons warning that companies and public entities cannot directly contract anything that exceeds 18,000 euros and that verbal contracts cannot be made either because the law prohibits them. It is a real shame," lamented Corujo "that he forgot his exceptional knowledge when hiring his friend."
"Now it is up to other bodies to qualify these behaviors and determine the personal responsibilities of those who have enriched themselves with public money," concluded the president.