The Minister of Education, Culture, Universities and Employment of the Valencian Region, José Antonio Rovira, admitted on Monday, in the congressional investigative commission on Dana, that neither the day before the disaster nor on October 29, … Until 2024, there was no kind of communication from his department to warn of the severe weather phenomenon that was looming over the province of Valencia and which claimed the lives of 229 people. In fact, he admitted that his department’s first contacts with educational centers took place on October 30, and that the first information circular was only sent on October 31, that is, two days after the tragedy.
For nearly two and a half hours, Rovira faced questioning from parliamentary groups in the preliminary chamber of the House of Representatives, which is increasingly taking on more electoral connotations. The Commission of Inquiry began more than a year after the cold landing in Valencia because the PSOE did not agree for Pedro Sánchez to be part of the list of people who appeared, but finally accepted it as long as it appeared in the section on responsibility in the reconstruction and not in the management of the emergency. At the beginning of November, the victims were the first to appear and were later followed by the former president of the Valencian Community, Carlos Mazzone. Various officials from the Valencian government began to march behind him, and this Monday it was Rovira’s turn, and in the afternoon, the turn of Mazzone’s former chief of staff, José Manuel Cuenca.
Rovira wanted to clarify that the Ministry of Education is not competent to issue a decision to open or close educational centers, which is what city councils must do, and stressed throughout his appearance that they lacked “sufficient” information to assess the emergency, even though the State Meteorological Agency (Aemet) raised the weather forecast for that day to the red level at 7:36 and issued the hydrological alert at 12:20. A few minutes later, he went to Alicante, to his home, because he had an “agenda” there. When the Mixed Group’s deputy conciliator, Ojeda Mico, asked him what he should bring there, he replied, “Family and personal issues.” “I left with the false calm conveyed by the government delegate,” he said, later repeatedly asserting that if he had had information about what was to come, he would have stayed in Valencia.
Regarding the reason that prompted the University of Valencia to suspend its activity that day, Rovira emphasized that it was an “independent” decision and that the Polytechnic University, for example, maintained its activity, including a day in which the President of the Jocar Hydrographic Union, Miguel Polo, participated, which the State of Valenciana referred to for what it considered a “media blackout” for not communicating at the meeting of the Integrated Operational Coordination Center. (Sekopi) The increase in Boyu flow, which caused the valley where the highest number of deaths occurred as water washed away in locations where it had not even rained.
The education official insisted on what Mazzone had already said during his appearance before the investigation committee: that Al-Emit said that the storm would end at six in the afternoon and would move inland to the peninsula. However, as Miquel Otero (Bildo) pointed out, the truth is that the organization said that even though the red alert would have been issued at that time, that did not prevent the prolongation of the emergency because the rain would continue throughout the day and accumulate on top of what had already fallen. Rovira, like the former regional president, stressed that forecasts indicate that there will be about 180 liters of water per square meter in one day, and in some areas almost 800 liters have been recorded. “The information conveyed by the government is completely wrong,” the advisor said.
The account Rovira gave on Monday contradicts that of Valencia’s deputy head of government, Susana Camarero, just seven days ago in an investigative committee where the law prohibits lying. Camarero confirmed that Aldana had been taken up at a Valencian council meeting on October 29, but declined to specify what was said due to the confidential nature of the regional executive’s deliberations. However, Rovira stated that in any case the matter would be discussed “off the agenda”, “when the Council was about to end”, because, he said, he was not aware of the level of emergency that existed at that time.
Recurring scenario
As has become customary in this commission of inquiry, the role of Ignacio Gil Lázaro, of the Vox party, was to blame the central government for everything that happened; and the People’s Party, this time in the hands of Oscar Clavell, to expose the benefits of state reconstruction in the face of the neglect of the national executive; The PSOE, once again championed by Marta Trinzano, is quite the opposite. “The government of Spain has abandoned the people of Valencia. “This measure is truly atrocious,” Rovira said, noting that as a result of the flood, 50,000 students were left without classrooms and 115 centers were affected. On October 30, students’ emotional and mental support was prioritized, and before Christmas, he said, everyone was able to return to academic activity.
The Chancellor criticized the Culture Ministry’s refusal to grant a €15 million cultural bonus to those affected by the storm, the government’s refusal to exempt state aid for the self-employed from personal income tax, and that the Minister of Finance and future PSOE candidate in the Valencian Region, Diana Morant, did not even contact him. “It was a very difficult year, we worked a lot and did well. With city councils, whatever their label, side by side,” he said, in contrast to his criticism of the Sánchez government.