– In this case, was it known that the procedure that was applied was not in accordance with the law?
– It’s clear. This is clear. For me it is clear.
The person receiving the question and pronouncing the answer is José María Serrano, Deputy Director General of Secondary Education of the Community of Madrid until his retirement this summer. They are demanding it within the framework of the judicial investigation FP statuswhich is investigating allegations of a crime of administrative irregularities due to the alleged fictitious division of contracts and invoices between 2021 and 2023 for the delivery – with simple contracts not exceeding 40 thousand euros in works – dozens of works in educational centers valued at more than three million and which should have been put out to public tender. His statement causes an earthquake.
First, because he says he expressed his disapproval of the method used during an October 2021 meeting with other officials from the Ministry of Education. Secondly, because he supports his story with an email he sent in December of that year claiming the implementation of the Public Sector Contracts Act (“(otherwise) I express complete opposition,” he said). And third, because one of the recipients of that email, and one of the attendees at the meeting, he says, is a senior official in Ayuso’s government, José María Rodriguez. The clash of versions is clear: Rodríguez, whose boss is Director General of Secondary Education, Basic System and Special System until 2023, declared before the judge that he “never assumed” that the works were carried out “irregularly”. A contradiction between the two witnesses did not go unnoticed, according to legal sources.
It all starts like this. In September 2023, two VET centers in the Madrid region, Hotel IES Escuela and Ciudad Escolar, received faxes from Virelec demanding €1.4 million for unpaid amounts for works. The General Directorate of Infrastructure says they know nothing about them, despite their size. All alarms go off. The regional government requests an audit report from Public Intervention, which ends up “provisionally” revealing up to 3.9 million payments to just this company. The Community of Madrid condemned for this reason in April 2024 the person who was Deputy Regional Director of the FP, and the directors of the educational centers from whom the construction company was demanding outstanding payments. Then the elimination of every man for himself begins. In short: no one knows anything. Until October.
“At the meeting I say very clearly that (the work) must comply with contract law and that it must be done by the infrastructure department,” the former deputy director of secondary education says of an appointment he says he had in 2021 with his boss, the director general of secondary education and FP. His counterpart, the Deputy Director of FP, investigated him in the case; And one of the centers’ directors. He adds of the supposed illegal division of contracts: “It was quite clear that this would be done through the directors (of the educational centres), as they would pay the bills.” He confirms that “the amount of work was not appropriate.” He concludes: “I was clear that something strange would happen there and I clearly said that the Infrastructure Directorate and the Government Council had to intervene. For this scale of business, it cannot be done any other way.”
Confirming this statement without documentary support in the case, there is an email from Serrano sent on December 15, 2021 in which he claims the application of the Public Sector Contracts Act “as it could not be otherwise” in one of the investigated businesses. That is, a public competition is held. “In any other case, they will not be able to proceed with their execution, and I therefore express my complete opposition to their execution,” he added.
This is how Serrano summed up the content in court, admitting that he had not reported the case after that occasion: “I sent an email to my manager in which I told him clearly that this was illegal, what was happening there, (…) and that it had to stop (…). I had already said that (the business) was illegal there (…) and of course, from that moment I started monitoring so as not to get involved in anything else (…) If I had a little information before that email, then after that, nothing.”
The recipients of the email were two of the three people who, according to his account, accompanied him to the meeting in question: the then Deputy Director of FP, and the General Director of Secondary School, Organization and Special System. Because of all these details, Serrano’s statement contradicts the statement his boss made in July.
“I have always worked with absolute confidence in the work of the deputy principals, both in the FP and the secondary school,” said Rodriguez, Director General of Secondary Education, FP and Special System. He confirms: “Of course, I did not give instructions to the centers to carry out any work, and I have no relationship at all with the builders.” He asserts: “I never thought or assumed that these exit centers (as investigated) were doing so irregularly. Not at all.” When they tell him if he doesn’t do additional checks on what he signed for projects, he says: “It will mean repeating all the work again.”
“Rude” and “disorderly” behaviour.
The judicial investigation is focusing on clarifying whether the center directors acted on their own (which they deny), or based on instructions from Ministry of Education officials (as evidenced by the inspection and intervention reports). These are the possible violations stipulated in the Public Sector Contracts Law that the administration reported: the possibility of oral contracting (Articles 37 and 132), the absence of a document specifying the terms of the tender (Article 153) or the division of the amount of contracts to be able to benefit from the small contract.
During its investigation throughout 2024, the Public Prosecutor’s Office actually saw a “clearly illegal and presumably criminal administrative measure” in the “gross and obvious omission of procedure” applied by the regional government.
The judge had previously warned in November of last year of “the possibility of a criminal offense (administrative violations).”
Finally, the audits that the administration itself sent to the court, at the request of the Public Prosecution, coincide with a reference to the responsibility of the Ministry of Education.
“Expenses processed as subcontracts exceeding the small contract amount were disclosed,” the letter said. He added, “It was also taken into account to divide the subject of the contract (…) in order not to exceed the limits set for the small contract (…) and to avoid the procedures for contracting with the applicable bids.” He explained, “Taking into consideration the purpose and amount of these expenses, the contracting file would have been handled by the competent authority in the ministry.”
In light of these issues, the future of the case is raising tension among key officials of the People’s Party in Madrid. One of them is Enrique Osorio, who today serves as President of the Regional Assembly, and then Minister of Education. The other is Rocío Albert, current Minister of Economy, Finance and Employment, then Deputy Minister. the reason? The request for statements and procedures gradually rises through the ranks of the Ministry of Education.