“I never ask for a receipt when I pay”

Valencia chief offers series of excuses for lack of proof in Gürtel corruption case

The regional premier of the Valencian region, Francisco Camps, has reason to celebrate his re-election at the polls two Sundays ago, despite being dogged by a corruption scandal that will not go away.

But if his constituency was willing to overlook the possibility that he accepted expensive gifts from a business network in exchange for lucrative government contracts, the courts are not.

Camps is just one step away from sitting in the dock over the Gürtel case, an extensive bribes-for-contracts scheme run by a businessman with close links to the Popular Party (PP), to which the Valencian premier belongs. The 48-year-old politician, who has headed this Mediterranean region since 2003, will be tried for allegedly accepting tailored suits from Álvaro Pérez (aka “El Bigotes”), the chief of the Gürtel network in Valencia, where the ring was awarded contracts worth millions of euros and apparently also helped the regional PP secure illegal funding.

On May 20, 2009, Camps had to answer questions from a judge and from the anti-corruption attorney’s office. What follows is a summary of the interrogation.

Judge. Do you have a special relationship of friendship with Álvaro Pérez?

Camps. No, his relationship throughout all these years has been with the party. He is the person who organized party events, and my relationship \[with him\] always centered around big party events in the Valencia region, because I always like to supervise the design, the concept, the podiums, the lighting, in order to lend a air of modernity to the party events. The party confided in him during these years, and that is the only relationship I have had with him.

J. It seems that, following instructions from this man, or else in his company, you went to an establishment in Madrid to order some clothes. Is this correct?

C. Well, at one point ? it must have been during a party meeting ? he said he knew someone in a Madrid store who had a tailor’s shop, and who adapted ready-made suits that fitted quite well for a very good price. One day when I was in Madrid, I dropped by the store, met Mr Tomás, introduced myself, and that is how it happened.

Prosecutor. You say you used cash to pay. Do you have any receipts or documents to prove that you paid in cash?

C. I paid and I took the suit home. And if nobody asked me for the suit back, it’s because I paid for the suit that I took home.

P. And you never requested a receipt, given your position, in the event that one day you might need it?

C. That’s precisely why. For many years now I have never asked for a receipt when I pay for things so people won’t think I’m later charging it to the public accounts. That’s also why I don’t use a credit card, ever. My wife does. (…) I’ve occasionally taken taxis in Valencia and obviously I never asked for a receipt, like many public servants or people who work for companies do, so that nobody will think that there is some kind of account that pays for suits, or coffees or anything else.

Defense attorney. Why don’t you use your personal credit card, you could have gone to Forever Young (the tailor’s shop) and paid with that?

C. Because I never do, because it works out better at home like that, and because, like I said, I think that in the collective imagination, for politicians to use credit cards makes it seem like the card was linked to an expenses account.

D. So you don’t want people to see you using the card because of an image issue?

C. Yes. In the end, you’re taking decisions about your image, aren’t you? The way you dress, the way you are, the way you behave.

IGNACIO ZAFRA – Valencia – 30/05/2011

“I never ask for a receipt when I pay” · ELPAÍS.com in English.

Spaniards Take to Streets Before Vote

With elections set for Sunday in Spain in more than 8,000 municipalities and 13 of its 17 regions, thousands of people, most of them young, have taken to the streets in Madrid, Barcelona and other large cities this week, calling for an end to suspected long standing corruption among established parties. Fuelling the demonstrators’ anger is the perceived failure by politicians to alleviate the hardships imposed on a struggling population by a jobless rate of 21 percent.

At sit-ins, street protests and on social media networks, the protesters’ message is that of an alternative campaign that could eclipse that of the established parties and result in a decline in voter turnout on Sunday, from 63 percent four years ago.

Some of the youth groups have made the fight against corruption their battle cry, like NoLesVotes, or “Don’t vote for them,” whose manifesto starts with the warning that “corruption in Spain has reached alarming levels.” The group recently published a Web site map pinpointing localities where more than 100 politicians seeking election were also under judicial investigation.

Other protesters are fielding alternative candidates, like the Pirate Party in Catalonia, founded 18 months ago, which is hoping to win about 7,000 votes across Catalan municipalities. One of its candidates in Barcelona, the 27-year-old Francesc Parelleda, said political corruption was a consequence of a “political system in which there is simply zero transparency and democracy within the main parties.”

José M. de Areilza, dean of the IE Law School in Madrid, said, “I don’t think that political corruption is necessarily worse in Spain than in other European countries, but I do think that the economic crisis is now generating a lot more anger and resentment here toward politicians.”

On Sunday, Francisco Camps is expected to be re-elected as head of the regional government of Valencia, which includes the third-largest city in Spain and some of the most popular Spanish resorts.

By the end of the year, however, Mr. Camps is also likely to be in court facing bribery charges, as part of a vast corruption investigation, dubbed the Gürtel case, that has also targeted several other politicians from the main center-right political force, the Popular Party.

Mr. Camps was charged in February for allegedly receiving tailor-made suits in return for granting public contracts, with further possible financial irregularities still under investigation. Nine other politicians standing for the Popular Party on Sunday in Valencia are being investigated or have been charged with fraud. Mr. Camps and his fellow candidates deny any wrongdoing.

For now, the corruption allegations have not hindered Mr. Camps’s re-election bid, according to the latest opinion polls. Like Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister who is engulfed in scandal, Mr. Camps has portrayed himself as the victim of a witch hunt by political opponents, judges and left-leaning media. Asked in December to comment on some of the allegations, he said that “nobody should believe Soviet-style propaganda against everything that has been achieved in Valencia.”

In fact, “many people in Valencia now talk about the Berlusconization of our society,” said Ferrán Bono, a Socialist lawmaker who represents Valencia in the national Parliament in Madrid. “Some people have seen so many political scandals that they just treat them as banal, but I think many also genuinely believe the conspiracy theory that Camps has been so actively promoting.”

The Gürtel investigation, which also targets some Popular Party politicians in Madrid, involves more than €120 million, or about $170 million, of public funds misspent by politicians in return for alleged kickbacks, according to a summary of the charges presented by the prosecution this year. Its alleged ringleader, Francisco Correa, is in jail awaiting trial.

But corruption investigations have not spared other main Spanish political parties, starting with the governing Socialists of Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. Socialist politicians stand accused in several of the property-related fraud inquiries that have mushroomed amid a collapse in the Spanish construction sector. Since April, the Socialist party in Andalusia, the largest region in Spain, has also been shaken by an inquiry into whether party officials provided fictitious early-retirement packages to friends and family members.

Mr. de Areilza, the law school dean, said: “We have built a democracy with political parties somehow disconnected from society, who have accumulated a lot of internal powers and have not been regulated in very important areas like their financing — and unfortunately they are also the ones who are in charge of pushing through any reform of the system.”

Mr. Camps’s anticipated victory in Valencia is expected to be part of a countrywide sweep by the Popular Party at the expense of the governing Socialists, whose popularity has plummeted because of the economic crisis.

Whatever the outcome Sunday, Mr. Zapatero announced in April that he would not seek a third term in office, paving the way for the selection of a new Socialist leader ahead of the general election, expected in March 2012.

In their campaigns, many regional and municipal politicians sought to distance themselves from the policies of Mr. Zapatero’s central government in Madrid in order to bolster their own prospects. In the case of Mr. Camps in Valencia, “the message has been that everything that works in Valencia is his doing while everything that is wrong, like a jobless rate that is four percentage points above the national average, is the fault of Zapatero,” said Mr. Bono, the Socialist lawmaker.

The reverse, however, has not been true, with national party leaders careful not to antagonize powerful regional politicians who could influence their chances next March.

For much of last year, Mariano Rajoy, the Popular Party’s national leader, refused to confirm his support for Mr. Camps because of his ties to the Gürtel corruption scandal. On Tuesday, however, Mr. Rajoy went to Valencia to join Mr. Camps at the city bullring. “You are a great president,” Mr. Rajoy told him in front of a cheering audience. “The people vote for you because they love you.”

By RAPHAEL MINDER

Published: May 19, 2011

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/20/world/europe/20iht-spain20.html?pagewanted=1&src=ISMR_HP_LO_MST_FB

Further delay to the operation of Castellón Airport

The coming into operation of Castellón airport is being delayed still further due to the lack of funds of the Generalitat.  The government of Francisco Camps owes 17 million euros to Concesiones Aeroportuarias, this corresponds to the non-payment of 11 m euros for delays in the works, plus 4 m euros for the extra costs of the project and a further 2.4 m euros for the final payment of the loan taken to finance the infrastructure.
On 23 March, the President of Aerocas, Carlos Fabra, and those responsible for the private company Concesiones Aeroportuarias signed a new contract that put an end to the conflict between the two parties and the threat of a public rescue.  Fabra expressed his gratitude to the President of the Generalitat, Francisco Camps, for giving “absolute power” during the negotiations but two months later the confidence Camps has not been translated into money and the contract signed by Fabra lacks validity because the Generalitat has not fulfilled its financial commitments.  That agreement forced by the demands of banks, substantially improved the conditions to the concessionaire, as the Generalitat (through Aerocas) guaranteed to cover any losses over the next eight years. It also pledged Aerocas to pay before 31 March the remaining part of the equity loan that was granted to finance the project. But it has not complied.
Gerardo Camps, the economic vice president, yesterday admitted this debt, but aserted that the Consell will make this payment before the end of the month or early next.  Camps also acknowledged that the 15m euros owed to Concesiones Aeroportuarias in respect of delays and cost overruns in the work should have been paid in December.
The situation of pre-bankruptcy that the airport is passing through for non-payment of financial obligations is a delaying the application to the Ministry of Development for permits to fly .  The experts of AESA, the Air Safety Agency,  insist upon some minor works to fulfill the requirements established by the Air Navigation Act.  The lack of liquidity of the concessionaire due to the debt of the Government of Francisco Camps has hampered these works and therefore have not been able to claim the permissions so that the airport is operational.

South Of Watford: It Costs An Arm And A Leg To Fly To Castellón

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

It Costs An Arm And A Leg To Fly To Castellón

Until quite recently the South of Watford award for Spain’s most useless airport might easily have gone to Ciudad Real’s almost deserted white elephant. I now realise that CR airport is a bustling transport hub compared to some others; given that Vueling have been paid to operate a whopping 6 flights a week into the middle of nowhere. Or occasionally to Barcelona if Ciudad Real’s solitary air traffic controller goes home.

Rivals for the award are becoming easier to find. It appears that Huesca only got flights in the ski season, and even these seem to have stopped. And then there is Castellón. Under the wise guidance of the “ciudadano ejemplar” Carlos Fabra (description courtesy of M. Rajoy), Castellón now has a sparkling brand new airport. It was, of course, inaugurated in time for the May elections and Fabra dismissed all nitpicking objections about the complete absence of planes inside the new installation by declaring that it was an airport for the people!

It’s not even just a problem of the airport having no planes. It seems that it doesn’t even have the necessary permissions that would allow flights to land there. No matter, enjoy the place. There’s no imminent risk of nearby residents having their sleep disturbed by the noise of roaring jet engines. But the airport will have a statue to remind visitors of who owns the province. A tribute to the Great Tax Dodger himself is being prepared by the artist Juan Ripollés.

Sadly, yesterday there was a theft in the workshop where the statue is being prepared and the incident has revealed some intriguing details about the nature of this apparently immense work of Populist Unrealism. The thieves reportedly made off with three hands and an arm. Yes, that’s right – three hands. You don’t seriously expect a man who manages so many bank accounts to make do with just two hands? Not only that, but the combined weight of the booty was 2.5 tons and the thieves needed a lorry to steal it! Stalin himself would have been overwhelmed by the size of the statue being prepared in Fabra’s honour. Unlike the Copa del Rey, it seems they don’t have a duplicate. Yet.

Publicado por Graeme en 7:37 PM

Etiquetas: Corruption, Transport, Valencia

via South Of Watford: It Costs An Arm And A Leg To Fly To Castellón.