The external audit of PSOE cash payments confirms the functioning of the party’s treasury and rules out any irregular financing. But the report, to which EL PAÍS had access, warns of anomalies in some receipts of expenses reimbursed to the team of the Secretariat of the Organization during the period of José Luis Ábalos (from June 2017 to June 2021). The two experts in financial and tax law who prepared the document focus on certain tickets with “unusually” high amounts, such as a bill for “a menu” of 332 euros in a restaurant in Madrid; or in concepts that do not correspond to what is expected of a working lunch, such as the inclusion, on two occasions, of a children’s menu or a meal for nine people in a restaurant in Valencia on Christmas Day 2019.
The forensic audit was prepared by Félix Alberto Vega Borrego and César Martínez Sánchez, respectively professor and full professor of financial and tax law at the Autonomous University of Madrid. The range of amounts of recipes analyzed varies between 3 euros, the lowest, and 703.95, the highest, and the range of diners is also very different, going from one to 15, “with recurring consumption of menus”. Typically, these were regular restaurant expenses, food, drinks, desserts, and coffee.
To detect possible “luxurious or excessive” spending, the report takes as a reference the maintenance allowance included in a 2002 royal decree on the remuneration of group 1 service (which includes, among others, senior civil servants, Supreme Court magistrates and ambassadors). This standard estimates the regime at 53.34 euros, but the authors rounded it to 60 euros per person because it has not been updated since 2005. In general, they point out, between 2017 and 2019, expenses that exceeded this threshold were less than 5%. However, the situation changes in 2020, with 25% of revenues exceeding the figure of 60 euros per person.
Some of the “striking” cases the authors included in the paper correspond to that year. Among them, an invoice for “a daily menu” in a restaurant in Aranda del Duero (Burgos) for an amount of 193.5 euros, an expense that the report considers “extraordinary” and which “is not up to the cost per guest of a daily menu”. The report includes an image of this receipt, but like many others analyzed, it is virtually illegible, although it is noted that the ticket It does not include any details about the food or drink consumed, only the “menu of the day” concept. The receipt with the highest amount of all those analyzed, 703.95 euros, is also not well read, so we cannot know how many people it corresponds to.
Yes, another of the examples to which the report draws attention can be read well: a ticket for 289.5 euros for three menus at the El Lagar restaurant, located on Ferraz street in Madrid, a few meters from the PSOE headquarters. This establishment being one of the usual establishments of Ábalos and his team, the experts were able to compare the amount of this bill with others of the same establishment (not included in the document) and conclude that it is “particularly high” (96.50 euros per dinner) and that it does not correspond to what has been charged on other occasions in this same establishment.
Vega and Martínez point out that most of the notes correspond to recipes from restaurants located on the Madrid-Valencia axis, Ábalos’ province of origin. But there is also food in other cities like Vigo, Santiago, Santander and Seville and even in places that the report considers “particularly striking”, such as a meal in Andorra or a bill from Brussels and another from Bruges, all in 2019.
Most receipts do not indicate who made the expense. In cases where a name appears, it is usually that of the Secretary of Organization and Minister of Transport at the time; who was his advisor, Koldo García; and the one who was the driver of the first, Eduardo Cantos. Vega and Martínez conclude that the receipt’s recipients “appear to have a direct relationship with the then-PSOE Organizing Secretariat,” while pointing out some relevant exceptions, such as an invoice “that appears to come from” a hotel in the name of a woman who corresponds to the mother of Ábalos’ then-partner (the report does not include the image of this receipt). Party sources indicate that Ábalos was responsible for authorizing the reimbursement request, although in most cases it was Koldo García who collected the payment and, supposedly, paid it to the person who made each payment.
There are also restaurant recipes prepared on the same day and the authors analyzed them in case there might be “some sort of obvious juxtaposition or incompatibility.” In some cases, they point out that one receipt may correspond to lunch and another to dinner, but there are agreements that include two or more bills in the same restaurant in the same time slot, for which the authors of the report do not find an “obvious” explanation. PSOE sources indicate that these may be expenses incurred by different people in Ábalos’ team. Among the examples cited by experts are invoices from the “La Chalana” restaurant in Madrid, an establishment cited in Civil Guard reports for hosting meetings between alleged members of the investigated plots.
This place was one of the most “usual” in Ábalos, judging by the recipes analyzed. And Vega and Martínez warn that there are tickets with a much higher amount than usual in this restaurant. Like “a menu” at 332 euros, which represents an “extraordinary expense” much higher than the usual average expenses and which differs the cost per dinner from other bills at this restaurant.
About The Author
