A Transportation technician offloads the purchase of masks to the undersecretary: “The orders were given to me”
By Rocío Martínez Posada.
Angélica Martínez Ortega, Technical General Secretary of the Ministry of Transport during the coronavirus pandemic who was in charge of drafting the two ministerial orders that authorized the purchase of medical supplies from Puertos del Estado and Adif for a total of 13 million units, has stated that she limited herself to guaranteeing regulatory compliance, ensuring that the decisions about who should contract, with whom and in what quantity corresponded to Undersecretary Jesús Manuel Gómez García. “The orders were given to me,” he said.
Consequently, he has not been able to explain why Soluciones de Gestión was chosen, the company linked to Aldama that won both awards for more than 36 million euros. Nor why, in a matter of minutes, the ministerial order relating to State Ports went from 4 million to 8 million masks. “I was notified that where I put a figure it had to be increased,” he said. Again, the order came from the undersecretary.
This is the same answer that former Transport Minister José Luis Ábalos offered time and again during the investigation phase in the Supreme Court. At the time, it was completely disassociated from the selection and contracting process of Management Solutions. According to him, he delegated all decisions to the technicians, placing the head in Gómez García.
Martínez Ortega has also said that the only ministries that had “independence” to make emergency purchases that were necessary in the context of the health crisis were Transport, Health, Interior and Defense. Specifically, the portfolio led by Ábalos had the fundamental objectives of guaranteeing security in essential passenger transportation and in the transportation of goods to maintain the supply chain. And Puertos del Estado and Adif were the companies that were in the best position to buy due to their “territorial capacity,” he stated.
When questioned about why masks were sent to the Ministry of the Interior, the technician clarified that in the ministerial orders she drafted there was an authorization that allowed whenever there was an excess of medical supplies to be sent to health workers and State security forces and bodies. Although there was a body that in principle was in charge of this type of purchases, those acquired by Puertos del Estado and Adif “were the first to arrive.” For this reason, “it was decided that a part had to go to the health workers and the State security forces,” he justified. This response has caused visible satisfaction to Ábalos and his former ministerial advisor, Koldo García, who smiled and nodded. They have always defended that they acted guided by the need to alleviate the health crisis.
