The public company Planifica Madrid, which manages the real estate assets of the Community of Madrid, does not have the acquisition of the controversial penthouse on General Martínez Campos promenade registered on its website. It was said to be for temporary office use for Isabel Díaz Ayuso and her closest team, but the regional government had to announce the divestment in less than 24 hours after the operation was uncovered.
The public company, whose CEO is Pedro Corbarán Ruíz, with whom La Vanguardia has unsuccessfully tried to speak, and whose board of directors is chaired by the current Minister of Justice and Government spokesperson, Miguel Ángel García Martín, does not provide transaction data: neither acquisition amount, nor seller, nor whether there was any particular or real estate intermediary in the sales process who may have charged a commission for closing said transaction. These days it has emerged that the property belonged to the writer and economist Astrid Gil-Casares, ex-wife of the president of Ferrovial, Rafael del Pino Calvo Sotelo, who was asked for confidentiality in the sale.
Official sources from the public company respond to La Vanguardia that “purchase and sale operations have long times, they are not immediate, and then they are posted on the portal.” The same sources refer to the Transparency portal to obtain a response about the specific data of the transaction.
Heir of Nueva Arpegio
Planifica Madrid is a company heir to Nueva Arpegio, the land company that the former regional government president, Cristina Cifuentes, had to liquidate in 2016, after the corruption scandals in the Púnica case. Until 2023 it was attached to the Ministry of Local Administration and Digitization of the Community of Madrid, but in 2023 it was changed and attached to the Ministry of the Presidency. In fact, the president of its board of directors is Miguel Ángel García, who also serves as spokesperson for the Ayuso Government. Precisely yesterday, he was the one who announced the divestment of the penthouse.
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Criminal complaint for embezzlement
In this context of lack of transparency, the opposition demands explanations. Más Madrid has demanded from Planifica Madrid through a burofax that it publish “the operations with the apartment, as well as the cost for all Madrilenians.” The opposition party led by Manuela Bergerot considers that if it does not do so, it could violate laws such as “the transparency law of the Community of Madrid.” Therefore, it will go further and has announced that it will file a “criminal complaint for the purchase of the penthouse for a possible crime of embezzlement” of public funds.
For its part, the socialist spokesperson in the Assembly, Mar Espinar, has requested the minister Miguel Ángel García Martín to visit the penthouse that the Madrid president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, planned to use as a temporary office. Espinar has sent a letter to the minister requesting that he communicate the day and time to carry out the requested visit as soon as possible.
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The Madrid socialists also requested a year ago to visit the chalet with a pool located in the Término de El Paular estate in Rascafría, for which the Madrid government paid more than 4 million in 2023. In this case, the operation was authorized by the Government Council of the Community of Madrid, but in the case of the penthouse in the Chamberí neighborhood, it seems that it has been acquired through the aforementioned public company to avoid providing transaction data.
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