The former advisor of the Treasury Pilar del Olmo was not informed about the intention to buy ‘La Perla Negra’

The person who was Minister of the Treasury in 2003, Pilar del Olmo, has maintained today that she was completely unaware of the purchase operation of the Business Solutions Building, better known as ‘La Perla Negra’, located in Arroyo de la Encomienda (Valladolid), since As stated, he delegated the arrangements for renting the property only to the Ministry of Economy and Employment, directed by Tomás Villanueva.

As she already declared for this reason on May 15, 2017 before the Court of Instruction 2 of Valladolid, then by videoconference from her office and as head of the Ministry of Economy and Finance at that time, Del Olmo has been categorical about ensure that in 2007, when he headed the second of both departments, was completely outside the management initials for the rental of ‘La Perla’ and subsequent acquisition of the property.

It was at the end of 2007 or early November when the now deceased Tomás Villanueva, Minister of Economy and Employment, appeared in his office to ask him to delegate the management to your department to rent a building in which to relocate the central services of her department, to which she agreed by issuing the corresponding order and without carrying out any control of said operation from that moment on.

The witness, in statements collected by Europa Press, stated that the Villanueva department was obliged to render accounts of the efforts to the Ministry of Finance, something that, however, “was never done”, while at the same time he has claimed to be unaware that this first first management assignment from the General Secretariat of Finance in the Ministry of Economy was followed by a second one between the Secretary of Economy, Rafael Delgado, and Gesturcal for the purchase of the property and neither the two appraisals commissioned in 2009 by his department to Alia and Tinsa on the purchase price of ‘La Perla’, estimated at 39 and 41.7 million, respectively. .

Although three signatures were needed to pay said appraisals, one of them her own, the declarant acknowledges that signed but without knowing that these were price assessments purchase of the Arroyo building, something that, as she has censored, was not what she authorized in the order signed in 2007 since it only referred to the rental of the building.

Del Olmo has also confirmed that the Ministry of Finance that he directed also had no control over the rental and subsequent acquisition expenses because both were done through the public company Gesturcal, which was subject to public audits but whose debt was not counted as Community debt. “It made no sense to control that debt because it did not count for debt purposes,” the former counselor insisted.

Throughout her statement, the counselor has justified a good part of her ignorance of the facts in that her main task is “political impulse”, not so much being aware of the administrative efforts of her department, and has pointed out that the operation of ‘La Perla’, despite the fact that it assumed a cost close to 70 million euros, was not even addressed in the Governing Council of the Board.

Award without competition

Yes, he recalled that on May 16, 2016, he personally gave the order to the Legal Services of the Board to appear as a private prosecutor in the present judicial process, and this when the court requested documentation. confirmed the non-existence of “file, advertising, competition and competition” for the work awarded to the company Unifica for the interior partitioning and signage of ‘La Perla’ for an amount exceeding four million euros.

“By rummaging through papers it was possible to verify that there had been no administrative procedure for that award and that is why I made the decision to go to the Board. without passing that decision through the Government Council, because it was empowered as a counselor,” he justified.

During the interrogation, the counselor has also denied that the then president of the Board contacted her following the fact that the then territorial delegate of the Board and at that time member of Gesturcal, Pablo Trillo, conveyed to him his disagreement with the “insane” rental and purchase prices of ‘La Perla’, despite the fact that the latter stated At the time, Juan Vicente Herrera went to Villanueva to let himself be guided by the technicians of the Ministry of Finance.

Nor was the former counselor aware of the operation to acquire land in Portillo (Valladolid) for the creation of an industrial estate that was never executed and where several owners, the brothers Eliseo and Isidoro Martín Martín, sold different plots to two of the accused, the businessmen Luis Ángel Rodríguez Herrero and Germán Martín Giraldo.

Both brothers have agreed in pointing out that the first of the accused spoke of installing a shoe factory on a plot and the second commented on the idea of ​​developing an industrial area, although “nothing has been done there, the lands are still lost, that is a meadow”, Eliseo Martín has specified.