The PP asks Sánchez's right-hand man for accountability for dismissing the official who advanced the Ceuta data

The Popular Party has brought to Congress the dismissal of the head of communication of the Department of National Security who published the first figures of the massive arrival of migrants in Ceuta. The 'populares' have requested the appearance of Diego Rubio, director of the Cabinet of the Presidency of the Government, to explain who ordered her removal and why.

On Friday morning, the employee disseminated an estimate of 49,000 people who had arrived irregularly in Ceuta during the previous 24 hours. The information disappeared shortly after from the National Security page, and the Government offered its first official balance around 2:00 p.m., which raised the figure to 50,000 people.

The closeness between both figures supports a good part of the PP's offensive. The Government has justified the dismissal due to a "loss of confidence" and assures that the official published "unverified" information on a particularly sensitive matter. The replacement affects the position she held within the department, although she retains her status as a civil servant.

The 'populares' suspect that she was "dismissed for doing her job well" and accuse the Executive of being "afraid" for the truth to be known about what happened at the border. The Secretary of Institutional Regeneration of the PP, Cuca Gamarra, has stated that the employee committed the "unforgivable error" for the Government of reporting in real time on a national security crisis.

The first official figure of an unprecedented crisis

During the first hours of the crisis, the Government avoided providing a complete figure of irregular entries through its official channels. The notice from the Department of National Security thus became the first estimate disseminated by an agency dependent on the Executive itself.

The department is headed by General Loreto Gutiérrez Hurtado and is part of the Cabinet of the Presidency led by Diego Rubio. The data reflected an arrival of people much higher than that recorded in May 2021, when around 10,000 migrants entered Ceuta in about 48 hours.

In addition to Rubio's appearance before the Mixed Congress-Senate National Security Commission, the PP has registered several written questions to clarify whether the dismissal was directly related to that publication. It also wants to know who ordered the alert to be withdrawn and what checks were missing to consider the estimate verified.

The party asks the Executive if informing about facts that affect national security can justify the dismissal of a communication manager. "Does the Government think that the facts about which the alert was given should have been kept hidden from public opinion?", concludes the document registered by the popular party.