Salvador Illa has defended his management at the head of the Spanish health ministry in the Congress of Deputies. The current candidate of the Catalan Socialist Party (PSC) for the election to the Catalan Parliament appeared before the commission of inquiry on the purchase of health equipment during the pandemic to give explanations over the Koldo case and the relationship of the alleged corruption plot with his ministry. After an initial intervention in which he explained all the checks and balances that existed in the health ministry, he had his first face-to-face questioning with the representative of the People's Party (PP), Elías Bendodo, who asked him if he or anyone from his ministry "had a direct relationship with the leaders of the corrupt commissions scheme". And Illa was clear: "No direct relationship with any of the companies. I saw Mr Koldo García at the ministry only once, I told him what the procedure was and that he should speak to the technical managers, and the result from the team is that they did not contract anything". "This is the only contact I had with this gentleman", he added.
Later, Illa reiterated that he referred Koldo to the technicians, who attended to him and, following the procedure, "the result was that the health ministry did not buy anything from these companies". According to the now-Catalan Socialist leader, this was the situation in all cases, since, as a minister, he "redirected everyone who addressed him to the e-mail in-boxes" and it was the technicians "who made the decisions based on certain criteria". "The health ministry did not hire Soluciones de Gestión, I don't know if I should say it in Latin: not a single euro went out to this company", he replied as the PP persisted in its questioning. Illa regretted that the Coronavirus pandemic "brought out the best in Spanish society and the worst in a few people, difficult to detect at that time by all administrations".
From the PP, Elías Bendodo asserted that, without him, "all the irregularities that are being investigated would not have been possible", since his ministry, and himself as the overall leader, "were a filter for pirate companies and for the PSOE plot investigated by the National Audience". Bendodo asserted that the specialist anti-corruption prosecutors, the National Audience and the European Prosecutor's Office "are investigating contracts of your ministry" for "very serious crimes such as criminal organization, influence peddling and bribery". "You have justice on your heels", he proclaimed.
"No reprimand - administrative, procedural, or criminal" against anyone linked the ministry
The former health minister explained that, after "72 investigation, checking and auditing actions" in relation to the Spanish health ministry concerning Covid-19, there had not been "in any case, any administrative, procedural, or criminal reprimand against any responsible person linked to the ministry". Illa explained that, after the first few days, he was not the one who authorized the ministry's purchases, but that the powers "were delegated for efficiency" to other ministry officials. In addition, he stated that "it is false that he authorized any kind of purchase" and he wanted to make it clear that the fact that "there is a quote given in a summary is very different from being accused in some procedure". And he ended with a rebuke at the People's Party MP himself: "If even in those moments [of the pandemic] we are able to maintain a minimum of unity, I don't know what concept of patriotism you have".