An Excel table was the problem. Ignacio Zaldívar, an Adif worker, made it for his own consumption. He never thought he would go beyond the walls of his office to reach the Supreme Court. In it he wrote “presidency” next to the name of Jésica Rodríguez as a red flag to remind him that this girl was a “special” case. The work footprint of the young woman, the ex-partner of José Luis Ábalos whom the former Minister of Transportation placed – thanks to the efforts of his faithful collaborator, Koldo García – in up to two public companies, has been one of the puzzles that the magistrates have tried to decipher in the second session of the trial for the alleged rigging in the purchase of masks. It has not been an easy task, because the trail was devilish and because the witness accounts have not made it easy either.
The painting was painted by two workers from Ineco, one from Tragsatec and Zaldívar, from Adif. The court had already heard former managing directors of Logirail – another public company in which Ábalos and García managed to place a second woman: Claudia Montes – and the former president of Renfe Isaías Táboas, also for the hiring of the former miss Asturias +30 of 2017, who has been defined as a “friend” and “party partner” of “José Luis”. Whether due to fatigue or the complexity of the facts, the truth is that the court has surrendered to the evidence. “But do you belong to Adif? And also to Ineco?” asked the president, Andrés Martínez Arrieta. The head of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, Alejandro Luzón, who was also already showing a certain fatigue, has been in charge of unraveling the mess with a pedagogical interrogation about how the hiring dynamics worked between the companies dependent on Transport.
Zaldívar, who was sitting there, has been the necessary collaborator of Luzon. And from the chair that the court reserves for its interlocutors, with its glasses, its dark clothing and its slow tone, it has been explaining – not without a certain dose of patience – that Adif used Ineco and Tragsatec as a fishing ground when it needed personnel with specific profiles for specific projects. The usual route was to enter through Ineco, where the contract did not exceed two years, and continue at Tragsatec, but always linked to orders from Adif. Rodríguez did the same thing. Alberto Durán, the PP lawyer, who is leading the popular accusations, has been the only one to draw attention to this way of working “You know that in labor law this is not admissible,” he told him. “Excuse me, but I am a technician and you are putting me in a difficult position,” Zaldívar snapped.
Navigating between files, parts and certifications
With this point clarified, the next challenge has been to find out who should monitor Rodríguez, if they realized that he was not working and if they took action. Amparo Monterrey, current Ineco worker who was not one at that time but who was tasked with investigating in retrospect What had happened, he confessed that in the company “it was a surprise” to find out from the press that they had someone on the payroll who did not carry out any work activity. “There is no evidence that there was any incident” because “she” or someone with her “user” filled out the work reports, she justified. The person who received these reports, María Dolores Tapia, has confirmed it. It has been difficult because “Mariló” has been exquisite when it comes to naming the documents she handled. There has come a time when neither the prosecutor, nor the court, nor anyone else knew what papers he was talking about. “That is a record and the timesheet is something else,” he said, in a true explanatory effort. The testimony has been on track and it has become clear that the only thing that bothered her was that the young woman “accounted for hours on a local holiday,” but that was something that she always had to correct. “The kids make mistakes,” assumed Tapia, who in the end felt so comfortable that, even though the session was ending, she saw no problem in continuing the trial. “Phenomenal”.
Raquel Yagüe has appeared for Tragsatec, another worker who is currently a worker but who was not at the time and from whom the court has only found out that her certificate (also an important word) reflected the reality of what Rodríguez received from that company, about 9,500 euros. Zaldívar finished the day as an Adif emissary. His role, he indicated, was to monitor those projects in which there were personnel sent by Ineco and Tragsatec. Between “relationships”, “certifications” and “confirmations”, it has been revealed that the young woman was never assigned to the Presidency of Adif. In his Excel he put it that way because the then president, Isabel Pardo de Vera, called him on the phone up to two times with an alarming message: “The minister called me, you are bothering this one.” Once it was because Ineco couldn’t locate her to give her some food checks; the second, due to a problem in Tragsatec that Zaldívar was unable to find out. The young woman, with whom he spoke about the first incident, seemed “haughty and arrogant” but it was not his “mission” to know “what she was doing” and he recommended her to continue at Tragsatec, as with everyone. “I am a transmitting belt. I simply transmit.”
