The former director of the southern zone of Acciona Construction, Manuel García Alconchel, distanced himself this Monday from the awarding of collaborative works to Servinabar, the key Navarrese company in the plot of alleged rigging of public works in exchange for commissions during the mandate of José Luis Ábalos at the Ministry of Transport. According to judicial sources present at the interrogation, García Alconchel assured that Acciona was already collaborating with the Navarrese company when he came to power and that it was the company’s former construction director, Justo Vicente Pellegrini, who suggested to him the possibility of working with this company, in which, allegedly, the former PSOE organizational secretary Santos Cerdán held 45% of the shares. Alconchel, suspended by Acciona after being indicted by the Supreme Court last November, was also questioned about the hiring of Cerdán’s brother-in-law, Antonio Muñoz, to work on the V Centenario bridge in Seville; The former director explained that he was hired as a worker from Servinabar to perform the functions of “safety supervisor” in the access works to the port of the Andalusian capital.
The judge decreed, at the request of Anti-Corruption, that the same precautionary measures be imposed on him that weigh on the rest of the people charged in the plot: fortnightly appearances, withdrawal of passport and ban on leaving Spain. Magistrate Leopoldo Puente cited García Alconchel as under investigation following a Civil Guard report that implicated him in the plot, alongside Acciona’s former construction director, Justo Vicente Pelegrini, and his subordinate, Tomás Olarte Sanz. Both testified on December 3 and denied that, as the Civil Guard claims, the company participated in the alleged rigging of the contract by paying 2% of the amount of each award to the Navarrese company Servinabar, and they assured that Acciona had contracted with the Navarrese company to prevent professional risks in the works, and that the 2% was not a fixed amount, but rather the maximum “limit” that was paid for these services.
García Alconchel’s statement, according to the legal sources consulted, goes in the same direction. The former director assured that the collaboration protocol he signed in 2018 with Servinabar for the work in Seville is “clonic” compared to a precedent for work in Logroño and that these types of documents are not “contracts” but “declarations of intentions”. Regarding the reason why they have always accepted that the Navarrese company receives 2% of the amount of the reward, García Alconchel, according to these sources, said that with regard to the work “labor relations and health”, 2% is “the market price”.
The worker argued before the judge that upon his arrival Serviabar was already “introduced into the company” and that the construction director, Vicente Pellegrini, had spoken to him not only about collaboration with the Navarrese company but also with others. It was he who decided to collaborate in the works in Seville, said García Alconchel, who defended that it was a “normal” relationship between companies. However, the former director assured that in the end, Servinabar did not collaborate in the works of the V Centenario Bridge because the works were delayed for more than two years and Acciona ended up taking them on alone; The Navarrese company, according to García Alconchel, only participated in some works for the access of the SE-40 to the port of Seville, but these were emergency works and no protocol was signed between the two companies as in other works.
Cerdán’s brother-in-law was hired for this job. Although initially he was going to work for the bridge project as a specialized worker, García Alconchel explained that ultimately he was supervisor of the safety of the port access works and received training for this. According to him, Antonio Muñoz contributed to the prevention work because it was a project that required traffic reductions and other needs for which Acciona did not have personnel. García Alconchel emphasized that the person who hired him was Servinabar and not Acciona, although he remained at his disposal in December 2019 until 2022.
Questioned by the prosecutor, the former director assured that he did not know that Muñoz was Cerdán’s brother-in-law and that he did not know him, whom judge Leopoldo Puente considers to be the “liaison” between the construction companies and the Ministry of Transport for the alleged rigging of contracts in exchange for commissions. He also does not know, he added, Ábalos or Koldo García. Anti-corruption official Alejandro Luzón asked him about a conversation recorded by the Civil Guard in which the owner of Servinabar, Joseba Antxon Alonso, a friend of Cerdán, sent him Muñoz’s phone number and later wrote to him. “Thank you Manuel, I won’t forget it.” García Alconchel affirmed that on the day of the exchange of messages, this worker had to be transported to the office and that Servinabar did not have infrastructure in Seville, so it was necessary to pick him up and take him to the company’s headquarters. He said someone on his team took care of that.
The judge expressed surprise that Acciona had hired for this work a small company that did not have infrastructure in Seville, to which the former director. “It’s almost comical,” warned the judge, according to the sources consulted. García Alconchel explained that this type of collaboration is common because there are small companies that “work very well.”
About The Author
