Ten protagonists waiting for an investigation (or more)

The socialist Teresa Cruz He left the Flower Pact Government at the beginning of the confinement. In fact, he alone attended the first meeting of the controversial Management Committee. It was a traumatic decision for the PSOE and the Government but barely explained at those times when the priority was to face the impact of covid-19.

The incorporation of Conrado Domínguez to the Management Committee increased the distance with Torres. Domínguez had been director of the SCS in the Government of Fernando Clavijo, when the socialists left the Executive, and a good part of the PSOE did not forgive him. Domínguez was recovered by Sebastián Franquis, who appointed him as technical general secretary in the Ministry of Public Works. With Teresa Cruz, Blanca Méndez also left the command structure of Health, who could also be called to testify in the Canary Islands Parliament.

In the Pact of Flowers, Julio Perez He debuted as advisor to the Presidency but had to alternate as advisor to Health when Teresa Cruz’s abrupt departure from the Government occurred. He was in charge of Health between March and July 2020, when the contract with RR7 was signed, although this was the work of the Canarian Health Service. Canarian Coalition has included its name on the list of requests to appear in Congress. Pérez is credited with having blocked the decree that was going to configure the operation of the Management Committee, a document that was on the agenda of the Government Council in April 2020 but was left on the table. The argument was that it would have meant altering the organic structure and competence of the Government.

Antonio Olivera It was key and continues to be key in Torres’ management. He came to the Government as Vice-Minister of the Presidency, with the guarantee of being the interlocutor of businessmen and especially those of Tenerife in a left-wing Government and with a president and a vice-president of Gran Canaria. In March 2020, he was on the Management Committee from minute one, where precisely this dialogue with businessmen was considered valuable in the face of the numerous collaboration proposals. And Torres turns to him to put out the initial fire that led to the abrupt departure of Teresa Cruz and her Health team.

So, He was director of the SCS when the contract with RR7 was managed and would have been the person who transferred to the SCS the contact with Soluciones de Gestión, the company linked to Koldo García. It is one of the few positions in that Government that Torres rescues with a relevant position in the Ministry of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, where he is his chief of staff. His name is on the list of requested appearances in the Senate and Congress. They also expect him in the Canary Islands Parliament.

Blas Trujillo He returned to the Government of the Canary Islands – he had been a counselor with Jerónimo Saavedra – when Julio Pérez said that he could no longer take it and that the interim position in that department, which needed an experienced team, had to end. A socialist veteran, he came to the Government from the Economic and Social Council and from there Alberto Pazos was brought in as director of the SCS. He had to show his facetogether with Conrado Domínguez, when the fiasco of the RR7 masks became known. But he soon began to distance himself from the investigated Conrado Domínguez. They appeared together in the Health Commission of the Canary Islands Parliament in 2022 but from the first minute Trujillo gave the spotlight to Domínguez. After the May 2023 elections, he has returned to private activity.

Alberto Pazos He came to the leadership of the SCS at a time of health crisis but he did so with the guise of a person who knew the ins and outs of the administration. That same thing caused that, at the first opportunity, showed his disagreement with many of the files he found. The emergency contracts of the first months of the pandemic became a headache for the SCS, either due to pressure to pay urgently or due to warnings that some of the material received did not comply with what was in the contracts. He had to be called to chapter by the counselor and other autonomous power structures for that reason. His name appears in the requests for the appearance of the PP in the Senate and the CC in Congress. They also expect it in the Canarian Parliament.

If we talk about alleged irregularities in the management of health contracts in times of pandemic, the first name that comes to mind for many is Conrado Dominguez. He came to the Management Committee at the proposal of the Socialist leadership and also endorsed by Nueva Canarias. His greatest supporter at that time and always was Sebastián Franquis and very soon he lived up to the fame that preceded him: a very decisive manager, who always answered calls and was available 24 hours a day, seven days a week and 30 days a week. days a month.

When CANARIAS7 reveals the Masks case and the Anti-Corruption investigation in 2022, it was called to the Presidency chapter, with more than one advisor present at the meeting. They asked him for explanations, because there were members of the Government who did not know about the fiasco – despite the fact that the operation to force the company through the Canarian Tax Agency had begun – and from the first moment he denied knowing the owner of RR7. He maintained the same denial before prosecutor Javier Ródenas and before judge Javier García García-Sotoca. Once the complaint was filed by Ródenas and admitted for processing, Torres kept him in office. In fact, it was he who made the allegations in the pre-report of the Audit of Accounts that warned of alleged accounting irregularities in that contract and that a dozen more could be null and void.

The conversations with the owner of RR7 reported by this newspaper left him without arguments and in November 2022 he resigned. Why then? Because Torres told him to his face, in a tense meeting in which Sebastián Franquis was also present, that he was going to be dismissed the next day in the Government Council if he did not leave before. He remains under investigation in the Mascarillas case, which the European Public Prosecutor’s Office has been investigating since the end of 2022, and in May he was called to testify in Madrid. His name is on the lists of proposed appearances in Congress and the Senate. They also expect him in the Canary Islands Parliament. Being a defendant, he can take advantage of his right not to testify in the commissions.

The PP has included Pedro Pacheco on the Senate list. He will likely repeat as president of the Canary Islands Audience of Accounts at the proposal of CC and he does so after having experienced an almost unprecedented situation in that institution: counselor Fernando Figuereo (proposed by the PP) was responsible for a pre-report on the audit of the health contracts that warned of possible accounting irregularities in the case of RR7 and the nullity of a dozen more operations.

Pacheco submitted the pre-report to the Court of Accounts but the document was rejected in the plenary session of the Court after harsh attacks from the councilors proposed by the PSOE and NC. The Court of Auditors archived the RR7 file without going into the substance: it accepted that the Autonomous Community had initiated the procedure to recover the money and that was enough.

The name of Marco Antonio Navarro Tacoronte appears on the PP’s list of those appearing for the Senate. It remains to be seen if the Popular Party also asks that it go to the Canarian Parliament commission. He appears as being investigated in the Mediador case, which owes its name precisely to his role as an intermediary in an alleged corruption plot.. But why does it appear related to health contracts? In court he said that Conrado Domínguez became his “boss” after the then socialist deputy Juan Bernardo Fuentes had first been his boss. In his recordings, conversations and photos with Conrado Domínguez have appeared in the office of the then director of the SCS. This newspaper has also revealed recordings of both in a hospitality establishment in the capital of Gran Canaria talking about purchases, “invoices” and supplies of medical supplies.

José Luis Ábalos He was much more than a minister with a large investment budget in the Government of Pedro Sánchez: He was a person of the highest confidence of the federal leader of the socialists, was brought by him to the Council of Ministers, and also by the Secretary of Organization of the PSOE. For this reason, Koldo García was not just one of the many ministerial advisors: he was the right hand of a very relevant person, with the addition that Ábalos rewarded García by placing him in representative positions in state bodies. That is why he had access to Ábalos’ contact agenda and in it the Canarian PSOE occupied a relevant role because, for Torres and his team, the minister was the gateway to the Government.

If something had to be resolved, Ábalos was called first and many times Koldo García answered the calls. That is why, according to the explanation of Torres’ team, it seemed ‘normal’ that García recommended at the very beginning of the confinement a company supplying medical supplies that was already contracting with the state administration and that this seemed like sufficient guarantee. From there other contacts would come.

The Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard also found García’s coincidence in the capital of Gran Canaria, in the same hotel and dates, with the owner of the Levantina Engineering and Construction company (LIC), days before that the tender went out to remodel the old Royal Building and adapt it as the headquarters of the Canary Islands Tax Agency. LIC won the tender and later left the work hanging. The file still remains unresolved.