A position of the Madrid City Council charged a commission of 3% from a winning company for a millionaire work

The central offices of the EMT in Madrid, last Thursday. Jaime Villanueva

A charge of the Madrid City Council charged a 3% commission from a company that was awarded a major work in the capital.

Pablo Pradillo, head of the Division of the Municipal Transport Company (EMT) of Madrid and son of the former manager of the Regional Transport Consortium of the Community, José Manuel Pradillo, received more than 150,000 euros from a construction company for helping him obtain a contract from the own EMT, according to the documentation to which EL PAÍS has had access.

Pradillo, who has come to admit that percentage and amounts, defends its legality and argues that there were no incompatibilities because he was on "voluntary leave" at the time of the project's bidding: a reform for conservation,

These facts are known when the City Council of the capital is under the magnifying glass for the

, a judicial investigation where the millionaire commissions that Luis Medina and Alberto Luceño charged for the sale of defective sanitary material to the Consistory in the worst are investigated of the pandemic.

The Administration spent 11 million euros in this operation involving the brother of the Duke of Feria.

In the case of Pradillo, the payments he received from the construction company began before the pandemic and continued during it.

A Temporary Business Union (UTE), headed by Inesco SA, paid the head of the EMT Division a commission of 3% for a project of more than five million euros (more than six million with VAT): the conservation works , maintenance and adaptation of the facilities of the Fuencarral Operations Center.

The EMT position received the money through a company called Mansaluve, in which it appears as a joint and several administrator and which, according to the Mercantile Registry, has been dedicated since 2019 to technical engineering and advisory services.

Pradillo had served as head of the EMT Infrastructure Construction Division for a decade.

According to his LinkedIn profile, he was in that position from September 2007 – although he, in an email conversation with this newspaper, dates his arrival in October 2008 – until December 2018, when he leaves for Mexico with his wife.

Just then, according to his version, the construction company Inesco contacted him to help him with a contest that came out in March 2019 and was awarded that same April.

For his advisory work to "prepare the offer", they will compensate him in several payments, which begin when he was already out of the public company and which conclude a few weeks before his reincorporation to the EMT in 2021, according to the

, invoices and other documents to which EL PAÍS had access.

Senior EMT officials were alerted to Pradillo's return to the public company and his relationship with Inesco, according to legal sources.

The current management of the EMT attributes any responsibility to the previous Administration, headed by the team of former mayor Manuel Carmena.

According to the public company, the contract is awarded on June 14, 2019, 24 hours before José Luis Martínez-Almeida takes office as alderman: “There is no complaint or sentence against [Pradillo].

The previous Corporation agreed with this worker the suspension of the contract and the reinstatement clauses.

He has been reincorporated as agreed in a different position, but corresponding to his category”.

Project details

This story begins at the end of 2018. Pradillo, at that time head of the Construction Division of the EMT, decides to go to Mexico with his wife and give his life a new turn.

Very shortly after, the EMT completes its "basic project of actions, conservation, maintenance and adaptation to regulations in the facilities of the EMT Fuencarral Operations Center", dated January 2019. This goes out to competition in March.

The work contemplated 23 performances and an execution period of less than nine months for those companies that wanted to bid.

The EMT, as stated in the City Council's offer, foresaw a cost of 10.7 million (taxes included), according to the specifications.

After being announced on the public procurement portal, a bidding period was opened.

The joint venture headed by Inesco, which made its offer in April, finally received the award in June and it was formalized in August, according to the EMT itself.

A UTE is a business structure without legal personality that allows the temporary collaboration of one or more companies in order to opt for this type of tender, a way to enter the bid with the large construction companies.

This UTE, in particular, is made up of three companies and set the price of the work at just over five million (six, including taxes), instead of the almost 11 that the EMT provided.

In public tenders, among other parameters, those companies that offer the lowest price, as in this case, are valued positively.

The UTE, according to the documents obtained by EL PAÍS, made the 3% payment to Pradillo between 2019 and 2021. The last payment was made, in fact, only a few months ago.

Inesco emphasizes to this newspaper that he signed a "service lease contract with Mansaluve on April 15, 2019" and that "Pradillo did not have any employment relationship with the EMT at that time".

Pradillo, through various emails, adds: "It was Inesco who contacted me during my voluntary discharge from EMT."

The head of the Division affirms that, when setting his remuneration, a “percentage of 3%” was established: “This is the criterion that is usually followed by any engineering or consulting firm in this type of work.

For the scope of a preliminary project, as was the case here, approximately between 2% and 6% is usually handled.

In our specific case, 3% agreed”.

Pradillo maintains that his work, during that time, consisted of advising Inesco to "prepare" the technical offer for the project through his company Mansaluve.

This company, as he himself admits, came about to set up a yogurt shop in the streets of Malaga with some friends.

However, after his discharge from the EMT and his trip to Mexico, the company changed registration completely.

He then decided to specialize in technical advice for companies.

According to the company's accounts, in 2018 it registered losses of 3,322.54 euros, and added accumulated losses of 34,900.65 euros.

Pradillo also acknowledges that the director of the construction company Inesco was his "promotion" partner: according to his LinkedIn profile, the position of the EMT studied Civil Engineering at the X el Sabio University of Madrid between 1996 and 2003. Five years after obtaining the degree, he was already head of the Construction and Infrastructure division.

“He had not worked with Inesco until this project”, he assures.

He has done it on another occasion: also in a project for the EMT.

In the contract report of the Consistory, another work by Inesco appears for more than one million euros awarded in June 2019.

The surname of this EMT position does not go unnoticed in the sector, according to several builders consulted in the capital.

Pradillo is the son of José Manuel Pradillo, manager of the Regional Transport Consortium of the Community of Madrid for a decade and trusted man of Esperanza Aguirre, former regional president (2003-2012) and former leader of the regional PP.

Before reaching that position, Padrillo Sr. worked at the City Council of the capital for more than 30 years, of which he was linked to the transportation area for more than two decades.

In 2003 he was appointed manager of the Municipal Consortium, from which he left in 2013, after retiring at the age of 70.

“I haven't been able to retire before because Aguirre wouldn't let me”, he joked when he left the position.

Pradillo Jr. assures that he entered the EMT through an internal selection process that was in force at that time.

"Obviously," he maintains, "my father had nothing to do with this process."

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