UNDER REGISTRATION

Updated Wednesday, March 6, 2024-00:05

The

affected appearance of Francina Armengol

on the involvement of the Government of the Balearic Islands, which she presided over, in the purchase of defective masks from the plot of the former advisor of José Luis Ábalos was

an obvious exhibition of weakness

.

Thirteen days after the case broke out, and when the European Prosecutor's Office is investigating for embezzlement and influence peddling both that contract and the one formalized by the Canary Islands Government headed by the current Minister Ángel Víctor Torres - both endorsed by

European funds -

Armengol appeared before the press yesterday and accepted questions, but did not clarify any of the questions raised about his management.

.

Nervous, making personal use of Congress and dragging the image of the institution with her, she left the intervention more vulnerable than she had arrived at it.

The explanations were insufficient

.

He did not clarify who approached his Executive offering the masks or why it took three years to claim the money when it was known that the material was unusable for hospital use.

.

He even contradicted the facts revealed by this newspaper: he paid for the masks above their price even knowing that they were

fake

(they were not surgical, as he said, but fake PPF2).

He also could not clarify why he hid the report on the defects of the masks from the EU and, as we published today, from three other controls: from the Intervention services, from the inspectors of the Anti-Corruption Office and from the Civil Guard.

Armengol insisted on presenting herself as an exemplary politician and as

a double victim

: of the plot - Ábalos himself has described the Balearic contract as a "scam" - and of the PP, which demands his termination.

However, far from apologizing for a management that was, at the very least, disastrous, Armengol accused the opposition of crossing "all the red lines", thus crossing the limits of the minimum neutrality inherent to his position.

She is the weakest link in the PSOE, which for now has imposed two firewalls: l

to the expulsion of Ábalos and, yesterday, the dismissal of Álvaro Sánchez Manzanares, general secretary of State Ports

, after EL MUNDO revealed that his superior hid from the Tax Agency the links of this company, dependent on Transport, with Management Solutions and with the key commission agent of the plot, Víctor de Aldama.

The facts are very serious: already in February 2022,

Alvarito

, which is positioned as Ferraz's share in Ports, hid from the investigation the participation of De Aldama - with whom the emails were exchanged - in the key contract with this unknown company, without billing or experience.

It was the first of the plot, the most voluminous (20 million) and the one that opened the door to the socialist administrations.

Óscar Puente has been forced to rectify after his fiery appearance, full of attacks on the press, a week ago

.

In the Ministry that he has inherited, charges continue, punctuated by a case that is testing La Moncloa and the heart of the PSOE.

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