The former director of IB-Salut claims that the offer from the company linked to the Koldo plot came to him from a ministry

PalmThe former director of IB-Salut during Francina Armengol's presidency, Juli Fuster, stated this Tuesday in the Senate that the offer of masks from Soluciones de Gestión y Apoyo a Empresas (Management and Support Solutions for Companies) – a company linked to the Koldo plot – came from a ministry, although he clarified that he does not know if it was the Ministry of Industry. "Who would have doubted the Spanish government?" asked the former head of IB-Salut during his appearance before the Senate's commission of inquiry into the ramifications of the Koldo case.

In response to questions from PP senator Miguel Ángel Jerez, Fuster clarified that he was not managing the contract for masks, although he does know that a call from a ministry came into the health service management department. According to him, an emissary from that ministry, who said he didn't know who it was, said that the Spanish government would send a plane full of KN95 masks, comparable to FPP2 masks, for the National Police, the Civil Guard, and state security forces, and that they had a surplus.

For this reason, IB-Salut requested the technical sheets and paperwork related to the masks, which were sent to the central purchasing office to analyze "whether the offer was actually correct or not." Finally, the contract was finalized. In any case, Fuster has repeatedly replied to the PP that the masks in the contract were purchased "from the outset" for civilian use, although at one point the KN95 equivalence did not correspond to FFP2, so they analyzed the masks. IB-Salut then decided to store them because it was unknown how COVID-19 would behave. However, it has maintained that at different points in the purchasing process, the Ministry of Industry equated the KN95 masks with FFP2 masks.

IB-Salut filed an initial claim in March 2023 to see if the money could be recovered, although it has confirmed that the company linked to the Koldo plot responded that it did not agree with the claim. However, he has disassociated his resignation from the IB-Salut leadership with the investigation by the Civil Guard's Central Operational Unit (UCO) into this contract and explained that he left the position because he had signed a resolution from the anesthesiologist examination board that he shouldn't have signed.