The brother of the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, received in total €283,000 of the company Priviet Sportive, beneficiary of the controversial contract with the regional administration that raised suspicions about the leader in her own party. The amount, received through four payments during the year 2020is far from the €55,850 of which the regional president initially reported -they are 227,150 euros more– and, on the other hand, it is very close to the number slipped from the PP leadership – between 283,000 and 286,000 euros-.
The controversy over these “commissions” picked up speed last February 17, after a alleged espionage orchestrated from Genoa to investigate whether Ayuso could have engaged in possible criminal acts to directly benefit his brother Tomás with public contracts for medical supplies during the first weeks of the pandemic.
? Statement from the President of the Community of Madrid, @IdiazAyuso. pic.twitter.com/lUTyVvcN1B
– Community of Madrid (@ComunidadMadrid) February 18, 2022
Before, the Madrid opposition had already focused on a contract from the Community of Madrid to Priviet Sportive, a company run by a friend of the Ayuso family who, despite lacking experience in the health sector, was awarded a public contract for one and a half million euros to buy masks.
The brother of the Madrid president was in charge of mediate with the company to acquire the material in China and transfer it to Madrid, a job for which he was paid, according to what Ayuso reported a day later, from €55,850.
first explanations
The explanation offered by the regional president, after the leader of the PP, Pablo Casado, questioned her “if it is understandable that on April 1, when 700 people died in Spain, you can contract with your sister and receive 300,000 euros of benefit for selling masks”, was transferred on February 18 to the media in a folio and a half press release with letterhead of the Community of Madrid.
In it, in addition to describing the fact of having to give explanations about his brother’s business relations with a company as “demeaning” “due to suspicions based on information that nobody explains where they came from”, Ayuso clarified that Tomás received €55,850not for “obtaining the contract from the Administration”, but for “the collection of the steps taken to obtain the material in China and its transfer to Madrid”.
“I mean, it’s compensation for your work“, the statement abounded, in which it was reflected that there were three more charges that he did not realize because they were not linked to the administration.
A week later, the Community of Madrid has admitted to El Confidencial that the amount received by Tomás Ayuso amounted to €283,000 in “four invoices, corresponding to four different works”. The regional government insists that “of these four invoices, only one of them has to do with a contract from the Community of Madrid. That invoice is 55,850 euros, plus VAT,” according to this medium. “All the information about it has been made public,” he says.
At the request of the PSOE, Más Madrid and Podemos, The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office has opened investigative proceedings to get to the bottom of the matter, although it warns that it does not appreciate plausible facts against Díaz Ayuso.