Last Wednesday, the news tried to explain who Vicente Fernández was, the former president of SEPI detained by the UCO as part of an investigation by the National Court. Meanwhile, the phones of senior Andalusian officials and many businessmen were on fire. … the news. Fernández was a well-known profile in the administration: lawyer of the Council, he led the General Intervention and was Secretary General of Industry between 2012 and 2016, becoming a key interlocutor of the Government of Susana Díaz with industries and investors in Andalusia. In a few years, he went from a technical figure to an important figure in economic policy.
It was María Jesús Montero who initially signed him for Intervention and later elevated him to the national stage. And she was also the first to publicly condemn him, stating that “she doesn’t know what this man, who has only been with us for about a year, is doing.” His time at SEPI was certainly brief, as he resigned after being indicted in the Aznalcóllar affair. Since then, he has devoted himself to private consulting, joined the circle of Cerdán and Antxon, architects of the Basque pacts of Pedro Sánchez, and strengthened his ties with Leire Díez, the famous plumber from Moncloa. However, during the long months in which the presidency of SEPI remained vacant, he was attributed a notable influence on the relevant decisions of the body that manages the state’s participation in companies like Indra, Navantia or Telefónica (with the assent of Montero).
Paradoxically, just five days after being acquitted in the Aznalcóllar case, the UCO arrested him this week in Tres Cantos and opened an investigation that remains secret. Some sources report irregular aid from SEPI; others suggest the plot was to collect bribes from IBEX companies; its millionaire assets are analyzed; An investigation is underway to find out if he laundered money in a cafeteria in La Cartuja… Until the secrecy is lifted, the full reality of this process will not be known.
Senior Council officials and Andalusian businessmen who worked closely with him may say – or think – that “for years they did not know what this man was doing”. They lost track of him when he moved to Madrid and now they observe, from afar, how Fernández has completely sunk into the mud. While all the data from the investigation are fully revealed, it is María Jesús Montero, the very one who integrated him into her core of trust and appointed him to one of the most coveted positions in public administration, who has already pronounced her political and social sentence without appeal. “We don’t even have any friends of friends… No idea what this man was doing, he left almost six years ago.” The Minister of Finance “summarizes” Fernández in the photo of Leire, Antxon and Cerdán… but Fernández would be no one in Madrid if she had not supported and protected him, and with her denial she also, in part, condemns herself.
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