Chaves, the ex-President of Andalucia, then third Vice President of Spain and President of the PSOE party, has been directly implicated in the Andalucian pension scandal.
The scandal revolves around regional owned companies that paid out millions in pensions to people who never actually worked for them, under the supposed orders of the government ministers in Seville. It’s known as the ERE fraudulentes, or fraudulent mass redundancies.
The (now ex) Director General of Work was today called before a Judge investigating the scandal to testify, as he has been directly implicated in authorising these pensions. He told the Judge today that the pensions were paid with the full knowledge of Ministers in Seville, and that Chaves, whilst president, told him to “fix” a political problem before holding a mass rally in a town in Cadiz where workers were demonstrating about being laid off from a state owned naval yard. The D.G. then apparently authorised a series of payments (since declared illegal) to keep these workers happy.
When asked if this meant Chaves told him to pay off these workers with false pensions, the Ex-D.G. replied “yes”. He later told the Judge that he was “relaxed” about the case, because “nothing I did, I did under my own responsibility, and I have paperwork to prove that what I did was under orders”.
Fair enough.