The former president of the Community of Madrid and historical leader of the PP, Esperanza Aguirre, is summoned to testify this Thursday as a witness in the trial of a part of the Lezo case, in which her successor in office, Ignacio González, is being tried for alleged irregularities in the awarding of two public contracts by the Canal de Isabel II linked to a golf course of the public entity.
Aguirre's appearance occurs in a case that in 2017 led to her resignation as spokesperson and councilwoman in the Madrid City Council, after the arrest of Ignacio González, who had been her number two during the years she was in charge of the Community of Madrid, between 2003 and 2012.
The accused and the penalties requested by Anticorruption
In addition to Ignacio González, also accused in this piece are the former managing director of Canal de Isabel II between 2003 and 2009, Ildefonso de Miguel, and the partners of the company TCT, recipient of the allegedly fraudulent awards, José Antonio Clemente, Pablo Manuel González and Juan José Caballero, the latter two being the brother and brother-in-law of the former Madrid president.
On the first day of the trial, held last Tuesday, the parties raised preliminary questions and Ignacio González and the rest of the accused denied the facts for which they are being tried. For all of them, the Anticorruption Prosecutor's Office requests sentences of six years in prison as alleged perpetrators of bribery offenses and as necessary cooperators, in addition to a fine of 550,000 euros.
The origin of the commission and the alleged plot to benefit relatives
The events date back to 2002, when the Canal de Isabel II, dependent on the Community of Madrid, signed an urban planning agreement with the Madrid City Council to enable the public use of various canal facilities, and called a tender to execute the project for the construction of the cover of the third reservoir, according to the provisional conclusions of the Public Prosecutor's Office, to which Europa Press had access.
In June 2004, the management of Canal de Isabel II, held by Ildefonso de Miguel and Ignacio González, then vice president of the Community of Madrid, "in order to benefit relatives of the latter, promoted and facilitated the processing of a modification of the previous tender," despite the fact that, due to the substantial variations that were to be introduced, a new tender should have been called, according to Anticorruption.
The Public Prosecutor's Office maintains that, guided by this objective, they agreed with Dragados that Canal de Isabel II would directly award it the modified contract, imposing the condition of subcontracting certain works to Tecnoconcret Proyectos de Ingeniería, commercially known as TCT, whose partners were José Antonio Clemente, the brother and brother-in-law of Ignacio González.
According to the Prosecutor's Office, the relatives of the former Madrid president concealed their ownership through straw men in order to disguise their family ties with the PP leader from Madrid. The approval and direct award to Dragados of this modification took place at the meeting of the Board of Directors of Canal de Isabel II held on July 19, 2006, after the intervention of González and De Miguel.
More than three million euros in works and subcontracts
The joint action of the accused, according to the Prosecutor's Office, allowed TCT, a company without technical capacity to execute any of the commissioned works, to unnecessarily interpose itself and unduly benefit from both awards, obtaining a profit of at least 504,780 euros financed with public funds.
On June 15, 2006, even before the modification was formally awarded, Dragados subcontracted TCT to carry out certain works, alleging that in a tender it had been the most advantageous offer. The Public Prosecutor's Office's brief states that TCT's partners had secretly agreed with Dragados' managers to increase the amount to be collected by 47%.
On that same date, Dragados signed a contract with TCT for an amount of 160,204.79 euros, the purpose of which was the execution of a test hole number 4 on the golf course. Afterwards, this commission was extended with four annexes dated August 10, November 15, November 24, 2006 and February 14, 2007, for amounts of 2,292,232.82 euros, 298,830.24 euros, 286,270.58 euros and 30,326.40 euros, respectively.
Thus, the total amount of the works that Dragados subcontracted with TCT amounted to 3,067,864.83 euros, according to the Prosecutor's Office's account. The Public Prosecutor's Office adds that TCT was founded in May 2003 as an engineering works company and it was not until 2008 that it incorporated the execution of sports projects, although, in any case, "it lacked all capacity to carry out the execution of the works included in the modification."
Payments, invoices and profit distribution under acronyms
Given this lack of capacity, the defendants in turn subcontracted with the companies Onlygolf Planning and Design and Fieldturf España, and agreed with them to receive an 8% commission for their intermediation. According to Anticorruption, Fieldturf issued three invoices to TCT for an amount of 270,204 euros and Onlygolf issued up to eleven invoices for a total of 2,605,805 euros.
At the same time, TCT issued thirteen invoices against Dragados for a total amount of 3,257,039 euros, "successively and correlatively" to the fourteen invoices issued by Onlygolf and Fieldturf against TCT for an amount of 2,876,010.16 euros, thus obtaining a profit of 381,029 euros for its intermediation, which the Prosecutor's Office considers unnecessary and imposed.
The Prosecutor's Office also maintains that, between November 2006 and March 2008, and in a context of economic pre-crisis, the accused distributed part of the profits "according to a perfectly documented plan." In this distribution, Ignacio González's brother, hidden under the initials PG, received 101,348 euros through 20 cash deliveries; his brother-in-law, identified as JJC, received 94,425 euros in eleven deliveries; and José Antonio Clemente, under the initials JCM, received 71,199 euros.
The concession of the golf course and the company Green Canal Golf
On the other hand, in 2006, the Canal awarded the tender for the management and operation of the sports facilities of the third reservoir to a Temporary Union of Companies (UTE) formed by TCT, Soto Once and Iridium Concesiones de Infraestructuras.
After this award, the UTE constituted the company Green Canal Golf, which signed the concession in 2007 and, shortly after, subcontracted TCT for the lawn maintenance work for five years at a monthly price of 9,875 euros. That same day, TCT, "lacking the capacity to execute that work," subcontracted it to Onlygolf, reducing the monthly fee to 7,941 euros and achieving, through its mere intermediation, an approximate profit of 124,000 euros, according to the Public Prosecutor's Office.