Businessman lanzaroteNo Angel Ramon Tejera de Leonbetter known as Mon, not only was it done with almost 200 works contracts of the Civil Guard, but also received a commission from the Ministry of Defense. The builder, for whom the Public Prosecutor’s Office the palms requests three years in prison and a fine of 488,000 euros as a result of the investigation of the work carried out between 2013 and 2019 in the barracks of the Benemérita de Canary Islands and the Peninsula, obtained the Defense commission for some minor works in a military building of Tenerife after offering to carry them out at a cost well below the value of the contract and the prices offered by the other companies that bid for the award. It is what is known as a reckless discharge, which obliges the contracting institution –in this case the Ministry– to request the employer a detailed justification of his offer. Among the documentation that Mon provided to resolve the legal objections to his proposal -and which allowed him to keep the contract, formalized in September 2022-, there is a report in his favor from the Command of the Civil Guard of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, directed until his dismissal last Wednesday by the chief colonel José María Tienda, whose name appears in the summary of the mediator case. Store is a friend of the division general Francisco Espinosa –the only one of the twelve investigated for the alleged political-business plot who is in prison–, and Espinosa is in turn a close friend of Tejera de León.
‘Mon’ lowered the cost of the work by 23% because he buys the materials at “special prices”
The Department of Internal Affairs of the Benemérita is currently investigating whether he has already former colonel in charge of the Command of Santa Cruz de Tenerife favored Mon in awarding contracts. The Lanzarote builder obtained almost fifty orders between 2017 and 2021 to rehabilitate different Civil Guard barracks in the province of Tenerife. They were mainly cork waterproofing works carried out by his companies Solocorcho and Angrasurcor, both limited companies. In fact, Tejera de León’s fondness for the Armed Institute goes beyond Tenerife, to the point that Internal Affairs, at the request of a court in Ávila, had already initiated an investigation into the awarding of tens of dozens of small works in twelve other command posts on the Peninsula between 2016 and 2017. Among those accused in this open case in Castilla y León is Lieutenant General Pedro Vázquez Jarava –already retired–, of whom the chief colonel of Ávila between 2015 and 2017, Carlos Alonso assures that he ordered him to hire Mon to improve the barracks in that province. Thus, the Cuarteles case – that alleged network of members of the leadership of the Benemérita to mask irregular adjudications – precedes the Mediator case, which on February 14 led to the arrests of 11 people, including General Espinosa, and which a week later led to the arrest of the national deputy of the PSOE by Fuerteventura Juan Bernardo Fuentes, Uncle Berni. In the Mediator’s summary, the ousted José María Tienda appears for a meeting with Mon and Espinosa in 2020 at a hotel in La Laguna.
The Civil Guard Command provided a list of the works carried out by the builder
Until now, the trio of friends Espinosa-Tienda-Mon – a quartet if Vázquez Jarava is included, who is pointed out as the supposed leader of the plot – has been under suspicion for the awarding of small-value contracts – minor contracts, whose Formalization does not require so many controls – in Civil Guard headquarters. Thus, through small amounts and without making noise, Mon’s companies invoiced more than 3.3 million euros between 2008 and 2019, according to a report by the Judicial Police advanced by this newspaper. It is these numerous –193– and in many cases unjustified works –as stated in the report– that are behind the complaint filed by the Prosecutor’s Office against Tejera de León. The Public Ministry considers that Mon committed a crime against the treasury by deducting undue amounts and thus defrauding 162,000 euros. The trial will be held on April 12.
All in all, the businessman from Lanzarote has not only received orders from the Civil Guard, but also from the Ministry of Defense and thanks to the mediation on his behalf by the Santa Cruz de Tenerife Command and, therefore, by the former chief colonel Tienda, who he was in office for over a decade until his recent removal.
waterproofing
The Canary Islands Command of the Army, which reports to the Defense Staff –with the rank of Secretary of State within the Ministry directed by Margarita Robles–, awarded one of Mon’s businesses, Angrasurcor, the contract for the waterproofing work on the roofs of the main building in Paso Alto, in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. The award was closed in September for 60,453.48 euros –including taxes–, or rather for only 60,453.48 euros, since the initial amount of the contract amounted to 78,695.31 euros, according to the information registered on the contracting platform of the public sector. Mon was awarded the Defense award with the cheapest offer among those presented by the ten companies that were interested in the contract. So cheap that it raised suspicions due to a possible reckless discharge, with which Tejera de León, as established for these cases by the Law on public sector contracts, had to justify his offer in detail, among other things to demonstrate that this very low price was not it was at the cost of, for example, poorly paying their workers. It is at this point in the awarding process that Mon relies on former chief colonel José María Tienda.
Among the documents presented to justify its offer, the builder included the works contracts in schools in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, other awards from the municipalities of Barlovento and Breña Baja and a report from the Command – from the “Commander”, is collected textual– of the Civil Guard «on the works carried out in the different dependencies. It also includes a list of works carried out. With this and with “significant reductions” in costs, since Mon, apparently, obtains “special prices” for his “long relationship as a client” with the suppliers of the materials, the businessman cleared up the doubts of the contracting authority and stayed with the award: “The document presented by Angrasurcor SL does sufficiently justify the low amount of the economic offer and, therefore, it can be fulfilled to the satisfaction of the Administration”.
