2023-11-21 20:24:42
The Court of Auditors has recovered 6.8 million euros of final convictions regarding aid from the ERE. A fraud that the conviction of the so-called political piece, ratified by the Supreme Court, deemed 680 million euros distributed by the Junta de Andalucía illegally, arbitrarily and without complying with controls in a decade. That is the money recovered by final rulings on “the aid destined to companies for the financing of viability plans granted by the Junta de Andalucía between 2001 and 2010”, reports the Court of Accounts.
In a final ruling, the supervisory body orders the return of 498.814,93 euros for the aid granted by the Employment Department for the early retirement of the company’s workers Sweet. In the resolution, the heirs of the person who held the position of general director of labor of the Junta de Andalucía during the first part of the period to which the facts being prosecuted refer. At that stage the general director was Francisco Javier Guerrerowho was a main piece in the plot and who died in 2020.
Warrior was the main convict in the case and the only one who, upon his death, from a heart attack at home, had been in prison twice. The main distributor of the ERE funds, who held the position of general director with three Employment counselors since 1999 a 2008declared before the Judge Mercedes Alaya that 31.L, the famous ERE game, was “a reptile fund.” He distributed the aid outside the office, in the bars of some famous cocktail bars in Seville, and his driver is on trial for collecting 1.4 million euros in aid that, he declared, was used to buy “gifts and cocaine.” Now, it is his daughters, his heirs, who must return those 200,000 euros.
The Court of Auditors claims other 298.814,93 euros to the person who succeeded Guerrero in the position of general director of labor of the Junta de Andalucía, to Juan Marquez. The former high-ranking official is convicted of prevarication and embezzlement in the ruling of the Seville Court, ratified by the Supreme Court, which judged the specific procedure by which the aid had been distributed, the so-called political piece where the former presidents Manuel Chaves and José Antonio Griñán with eight other exalted officials. However, the Supreme Court reduced Márquez’s prison sentence and suspended his entry into prison.
Six high charges in prison
Right now, six of the eight former high-ranking officials sentenced to prison in the ERE are in jail. The former Employment Minister, Antonio Fernandezwho is serving his sentence in the Puerto III prison (Cádiz), his former vice-counselor Agustín Barberáthe former Minister of Innovation, Francisco Vallejohis former vice-counselor, Jesus Maria Rodriguezand the former director general of the IDEA Agency, Miguel Angel Serranoall in the Seville I prison. The former deputy minister of the Treasury also remains in prison, Carmen Martinez Aguayo. They all went to prison to serve their sentences last Christmas. Former President Griñán did not go to prison due to the cancer he suffers from and former Employment Minister José Antonio Viera was released in the third grade suffering from the same illness. At this time, the Constitutional Court is reviewing these sentences and studying whether they represented a violation of their fundamental rights.
The Court of Auditors reports in relation to “the status of execution of the final convictions, handed down in the refund procedures by scope relating to aid intended for companies to finance viability plans, which were granted by the Junta de Andalucía during the years 2001 to 2010″, that the Andalusian Government “has already recovered a total amount of 6,818,000 euros, of which 5,935,000 euros have been returned to public coffers as a consequence of the executive actions carried out from January 1, 2022 to the present moment.
Scope of fraud
The Andalusian Executive of Juan Manuel Moreno (PP) He has yet to update the money he has managed to recover from the ERE case. There are three ways to try to return that money that fraudulently financed early retirements and injected direct aid into companies in crisis. Through civil liability in administrative litigation, in criminal proceedings and through the Court of Accounts. In his last appearance on this matter, the counselor of the Presidency of the Board, Antonio Sanz, stated, last August, that they trust raise the amounts recovered to “23 million euros” by final rulings in favor of the autonomous administration.
The total amount of ERE fraud has always been a diffuse amount. In the ruling of the political piece of the Seville Court he spoke of 679.432.179,09 euros, which was the figure also set by the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office. But although all that money, as ratified by the Supreme Court, was given illegally, knowing that the procedure circumvented controls and was arbitrary, not all that money was defrauded. In fact There are up to 6,300 workers, early retirees, who continue to receive a benefit each month. It is another fact that dances in the figures managed by the Junta de Andalucía, how much this item still amounts to in its budgets and that it is estimated that it will be extended until December 2025. The total money allocated to these ERE, not embezzled because many workers are paid legally, is 1,200 million public euros.
The defenses of those convicted always defended that the fraud was about 140 million euros, for direct aid to companies and intruders that should not have sneaked into the files financed with public money. As a matter of fact, between 140 and 150 million were paid to the General Treasury of Social Security in contributions and special agreements.
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