The PSOE will commission a second report to clarify whether its Secretary of Organization for four years, José Luis Ábalos, and his ‘right-hand man’, Koldo García, deceived the party by requesting reimbursement for restaurant or travel expenses not linked to the political formation. The imbalances in some cash payments detected by the Civil Guard put the spotlight on the method used by the socialists to compensate the expenses of their officials and employees. These suspicions have led to an investigation by the National Court into all the settlements of expenses in seven years, which has served the PP to sow doubts about the financing of the socialists.
In this context, the party commissioned two professors from the Autonomous University of Madrid to produce a report that concluded that the money with which these cash settlements were paid came from the official account of the PSOE and that these cash payments were supported by receipts. However, the analysis also confirms that the PSOE paid some “inappropriate” expenses, which points to a certain lack of control when authorizing cash payments against invoices. Among these subscriptions are seafood dishes, children’s menus or a hotel for the former mother-in-law of the former Minister of Transport.
The PSOE will hire another report to analyze in depth all the expenses that Ábalos and Koldo García passed on to the party – sometimes on behalf of other members of the Organization team – to determine if there are irregularities. “The PSOE has not been financed irregularly, but there have been people who have taken advantage of the trust placed in them and have trusted themselves as much as, probably, they have also stolen from the PSOE itself,” Minister Diana Morant said this Tuesday in an interview on TVE when asked about some receipts that are in the possession of the National Court.
“Notoriously unfounded” expenses
This first analysis carried out at the request of the PSOE has located some striking or “notoriously inappropriate” expenses. Especially in 2020, when one in four meals exceeded the threshold of 60 euros per diner that the authors of the report consider the limit to not consider them to be “luxury or excessive” expenses. On the other hand, in the years 2017, 2018 and 2019, expenses that exceed the threshold of 60 euros per diner are “reduced”.
The report takes as reference the figure of 60 euros per diner given that the daily maintenance allowance for Group A1 officials is 53.54 euros. That figure has not been updated since 2005, so the authors choose to round it to 60 euros. The report has only analyzed a sample of 18 of the 190 expense settlement sheets that Ábalos, Koldo García and the Organization team passed to the party between 2017 and 2020.
Among these “inappropriate” expenses stands out, for example, an invoice for “a menu” at the La Chalana seafood restaurant in Madrid for an amount of 332 euros. In addition, that day two other invoices were recorded in a row on the same day and in the same restaurant “the explanation for which is not obvious.” La Chalana is a seafood restaurant in Madrid near the Santiago Bernabéu, about 10 minutes walk from the Ministry of Transport, which was the base of operations for Ábalos and Koldo García, as revealed by police surveillance carried out for months on the former ministerial advisor.
The report also includes other accounts from establishments close to the Ministry or Ábalos’ home, which raises suspicions that expenses that corresponded to its activity as part of the Government were passed on to the party. This is the case of a meal at the Illunbe grill, located on Paseo de la Castellana, about 20 minutes walk from the Ministry. That lunch, which three people enjoyed, had a cost of 294.35 euros. Diners enjoyed two bottles of wine at 42.50 euros each. The PSOE also paid a hotel bill in 2018 in the name of Ábalos’s ex-mother-in-law, the mother of his ex-wife Carolina Perles.
The analysis confirms that in practically all of the expense receipts the recipient of these payments does not appear. But, in those that appear, Ábalos, Koldo García and Eduardo Cantos, the former minister’s driver, appear “in the majority.” There are several invoices from restaurants or hotels that are in Koldo García’s name, which shows that he was not acting as a mere collector to Ferraz for the expenses incurred by his boss, but that the PSOE also paid him for meals or trips when he was no longer an employee of the party. Koldo was on the PSOE payroll as Ábalos’ driver between October 2017 and July 2018, when he was appointed temporary trusted personnel of the Ministry of Public Works.
Only in the analyzed sample do there appear several invoices in the name of Koldo García after July 2018 and that were paid by the PSOE. Among them, several meals at the Jai Alai Basque restaurant or a bill for a Paris hotel for two nights for two people.
Among the striking expenses incurred by the former advisor is an invoice for 409.92 euros in a five-star hotel in Vigo (Pontevedra), which only includes the concept “one Alcabre Restaurant unit.” “This expense is extraordinary because it is particularly high and there is no detail of its purpose. It is also striking that there are 16 days between the consumption (07/12/2020) and the issuance (and payment in cash) of the invoice (07/28/2020),” the report states.
The “flaws” that the PSOE points to
The exhaustive investigation into all PSOE payments has the support of prosecutor Luis Pastor Motta, who asked Judge Moreno of the National Court to analyze all cash payments made by the party between 2017 and 2024 to “clear up existing unknowns.”
The Anticorruption representative asked that the PSOE provide both the settlements for those seven years and their supporting documents to “determine the manner and reason for the cash payments.” His thesis is that the imbalances in cash payments by the PSOE could be due to “money laundering”, a “possible embezzlement committed against the party” or “other possible irregularities.” Precisely in that case there is a writing from the PSOE in which the party claims to continue as a popular accusation after the PP’s request to expel them from the case. In that letter, the lawyers affirm that in the event that there were “flaws” in the expense reimbursement system “that had been taken advantage of by third parties,” the PSOE would be “the main loser.”
“What interest could the party have in reimbursing non-existent expenses, or compensating the amount of receipts that the interested party had found on the street?” states the letter, which insists that “the existence of abuses that have harmed the PSOE can never be ruled out” and that this would only reinforce the party’s position as an accusation against Ábalos and Koldo García.
Source: www.eldiario.es
