The stain of corruption splashes the PNV in the hometown of Urkullu

2022-02-21T08:51:45.792Z

A former mayor of Alonsotegi (Bizkaia) recognizes a fraud in the collection of public subsidies. Two other ex-regidors of the party are prosecuted for similar practices

The shadow of corruption hangs over the City Council of Alonsotegi, a Biscayan municipality of 2,900 inhabitants.

The focus of the alleged irregularities is placed on three of the five mayors that this town has had, all of them from the PNV.

One of the aldermen, José Luis Erezuma (acted from 2011 to 2015), has already admitted his guilt, together with a municipal architect and two construction businessmen, in a case of fraud in the collection of public subsidies to pay for works that they were not executed.

His two predecessors, Aitor Santesteban (2007-2011) and Gabino Martínez de Arenaza (1999-2007), will also have to be held accountable in court for similar events that could have caused an economic loss to the local coffers of 18 million euros, according to the accusation made by EH Bildu.

Alonsotegi is the birthplace of Lehendakari Íñigo Urkullu, although the Basque president is registered and has lived in Durango for several years.

It has been a fiefdom dominated by the PNV since it was established as an independent municipality and separated from Barakaldo in 1991. But the PNV has been showing signs of weakness and loss of confidence in the last decade.

In the last municipal elections of 2019, he was outvoted by EH Bildu, although he managed to retain the mayoralty thanks to the support of the only PSE-EE councilor.

The

nationalist left

, absent from the City Council between 2003 and 2011 after her candidacy was declared illegal, was precisely the one who brought to the attention of the courts “the deplorable and criminal management carried out by the different councilors [of the PNV] that caused a technical bankruptcy of the municipal entity”, he states in his indictment.

Agreement with the Public Prosecutor

The first legal battle undertaken by EH Bildu against the mayors of the PNV has been resolved in his favor.

Erezuma has had to admit the urban planning irregularities and the diversion of funds committed during his time in collusion with the architect Alberto Zulueta and the businessmen Eduardo Ibarra and Francisco Javier Bediaga.

They were going to be tried for the crimes of prevarication, two of false documents, fraud in subsidies and embezzlement.

But one day before the trial, they reached an agreement with the Prosecutor's Office and the accusations by which they accept a sentence of two years in prison, which they will not have to serve as they do not have a criminal record, and they agree to return the 681,400 in solidarity. euros defrauded and another 200,000 euros of interest.

The prosecutor's report concludes that the accused hatched a plot in 2011 to obtain public funds to settle a debt of 600,000 euros that the City Council had contracted with a construction company for the works of the health center in 2008. They falsified the existence of some damage caused by the heavy rains that fell in November 2011 in this municipality and appeared to carry out a series of repair works.

To pay for the payments for these “ghost” arrangements, the Consistory obtained a grant from the Provincial Council of Bizkaia of 600,000 euros and contributed another 81,000 euros from its coffers.

Those amounts were used to pay the services of the architect and Laneder Construcciones.

The former mayor of Erezuma admitted during the investigation that those works were not carried out,

The judicial investigation indicates that "the defendants prepared reports, projects, certifications and liquidations of works and invoices without real economic content and this in turn presented them to the Provincial Council of Bizkaia".

Asier Intxausti, the EH Bildu councilor who promoted the complaint, points out that "one of the businessmen recognized that this was the formula they devised to collect the debt" and that "they did it by presenting duplicate invoices and in works that were carried out in just 10 days".

The mayor wonders "where were the control mechanisms of the Provincial Council of Bizkaia to grant these subsidies".

In those years, the Foral Department of the Presidency that granted the aid was directed by the current mayor of Bilbao, Juan María Aburto (PNV).

José Luis Erezuma (fourth from the right), former mayor of Alonsotegi, poses with Lehendakari Urkullu (in the center, with a red tie) at the inauguration of the health center of the Biscayan town in 2015. Jon Bernardez / Lehendakaritza.

Two other similar procedures are still pending resolution.

One of these is cut with the same pattern, affects the former mayor Aitor Santesteban and repeats the architect Zulueta as investigated.

In 2008, fake works were also paid for with the public aid received from the Bizkaia Provincial Council (1.7 million) and the central government (230,000 euros), with the companies Laneder and Pabisa as beneficiaries.

And the third judicial front is directed against the former councilor Gabino Martínez de Arenaza, who after his municipal stage was appointed Director of Tourism of the Biscayan Provincial Council, and against his successor in the mayor's office, Santisteban, for influence peddling, embezzlement and fraud. to the Administration.

In this case, that he will be tried by a jury court,

The architect Zulueta is also prosecuted for issuing several invoices without contractual support.

EH Bildu maintains that the defendants incurred "unjustified expenses" in the Alonsotegi Eraikiz trading company, dependent on the City Council, which "caused an economic hole of 15 million, according to an external audit," says Intxausti.

The alleged irregularities being investigated in Alonsotegi question a PNV that has described these events as "bad practice," according to its president, Andoni Ortuzar.

In recent statements, the top leader of this party denied that there had been "corruption" because "there has been no illicit enrichment by anyone."

EH Bildu, on the other hand, considers that the PNV "has done nothing to clarify the irregular actions of its three mayors."

Ortuzar claimed to feel "sorry" for the facts recognized by one of his councillors.

In December 2019, Urkullu went further and apologized when the conviction of the so-called

De Miguel case was known.

, the largest trial for corruption tried in the Basque Country and resolved with prison sentences for three former PNV leaders from Alava, Alfredo de Miguel, Koldo Ochandiano and Aitor Telleria.