A businessman assures that he paid "without question" for 1% of the works he achieved with Aguirre's PP

The businessman Luis Gálvez, on the left, arrives this Thursday, accompanied by his lawyer, at the National Court to testify as a defendant in the 'Punic case'. Marta Fernández Jara / Europa Press

The builder Luis Gálvez, whom the ex-treasurer of the PP Luis Bárcenas accused in February of having given 60,000 euros in cash to finance the 2007 electoral campaign of Esperanza Aguirre, has denied this Thursday before the judge of the National Court Manuel García-Castellón,

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, having delivered that money, according to various legal sources present in the interrogation.

Gálvez, who declared as a defendant, has confirmed that his construction company, Ploder, received awards from the Executive of the Community of Madrid, although he stressed that they were few.

Among them, and as a member of a temporary union of companies (UTE), the construction and management for 35 years of a hospital in the Madrid neighborhood of Vallecas, an operation of more than 400 million euros, according to the regional contracting portal.

This contract included a clause to allocate 1% of its amount to publicity of the works, which increased the cost for the Administration.

Judge García-Castellón investigates in piece nine of the summary, on the alleged irregular financing of the Madrid PP, if that money ended up totally or partially diverted to box b of the regional formation and its leaders.

Gálvez has admitted this Thursday that he paid "without question" that percentage to the advertising company indicated by the Madrid Administration and that he never checked if the works for which that money was supposedly destined were done.

Gálvez, who already appeared in

, on the parallel accounting of the national party, as an alleged donor of 50,000 euros on February 22, 2008, went to the National Court at the request of the judge in the

who considered his interrogation as a defendant, the only way to "contrast" the veracity of the accusations that Bárcenas had launched against him during his testimony as a witness on February 24.

The former treasurer of the PP had assured then that he witnessed how the builder gave the then treasurer Álvaro Lapuerta, now deceased, an envelope with 60,000 euros at a meeting.

“He told us that he wanted it to be used in Aguirre's electoral campaign.

So, once we said goodbye to him, we went down together to the office on the first floor and, in the presence of Francisco Granados and Beltrán Gutiérrez [manager of the Madrid PP], Lapuerta handed Aguirre an envelope with 60,000 euros.

He told him who the donor was, the amount and that, please, call him to thank him ”.

The former president of the Community of Madrid and Granados have denied it.

This Thursday, the builder has denied both the episode reported by the former treasurer and having made any kind of donation to the PP or other political formations.

Gálvez has also denied that he had ever been at the headquarters of the popular people on Genova Street and that he knew Bárcenas and Lapuerta.

Regarding Aguirre, he assured that he only knew her from having coincided with her in some public events.

In this sense, Gálvez has insisted that his construction company obtained more public works awards from the Ministry of Public Works than from the Madrid Community councils, although he recalled that his company was integrated into the UTE that won the contract for the Hospital Infanta Leonor, from Vallecas.

"Mechanism" to "divert funds"

According to Aguirre's indictment in the

, the magistrate suspects that the 1% clause that the Community of Madrid included in its contacts was, in reality, "a mechanism to divert public funds in favor of the Popular Party."

In that judicial document it was collected that the construction company of Gálvez had paid for this concept 19,241.71 euros to the companies of the businessman Daniel Horacio Mercado, in charge of organizing numerous acts of the electoral campaigns of the Madrid PP for the regional elections of 2003, 2007 and 2011 in which Aguirre chained three absolute majorities.

The businessman has justified this payment in that this percentage existed in all contracts of the Madrid Administration and that he paid it "without question."

Also, that his company did not decide who was entrusted with these advertising jobs, nor did it worry about verifying that they were carried out.

The General Intervention of the State Administration (IGAE, a body dependent on the Ministry of Finance) last June sent the judge of the

an expert report in which it verified the “manifest illegality” of the 1% clause and concluded that it supposed for the public coffers a direct damage of 2.2 million euros, to which adds another million euros in invoices paid for works never justified.

The IGAE prepared that report at the request of the judge, who asked the Ministry of Health for the complete files of the construction and operation contracts of 46 public hospitals and health centers that included 1% in advertising.

More than three million of the money paid for this clause ended up being pocketed by the companies Over Marketing Comunicación, Traci Comunicación, Abanico de Comunicación y Marketing, and Link América, all of them owned by businessman Daniel Horacio Mercado.