If a new story in El Pais is anything to go by, it may just be that Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is one of those people who enjoyed up to 11 years of illegal kickbacks and under-the-table payments from disgraced Popular Party treasurer Luis Bárcenas.
According to El Pais, the Spanish newspaper has gotten their hands on ledgers they say were kept by Bárcenas and another treasurer, Álvaro Lapuerta and in the ledgers it shows Mariano Rajoy getting payments every quarter or every six months for at least 11 years. The payments add up to 25,200 euros a year.
No wonder Rajoy keeps saying he doesn’t want to comment on the Bárcenas case. He may just be implicated in it.
Oh and, by the way, El Pais has even published photographs of the ledgers showing Rajoy’s name quite clearly, just in case you have doubts.
Some of the money coming into the Popular Party accounts and then going out in what looks like under-the-table kickbacks even came from dodgy businessmen, including some of those involved in the Gürtel kickbacks-for-contracts scandal. Nice, Rajoy. Nice.
As for El Pais, they asked Mariano Rajoy to make a statement but he declined. Someone in the Popular Party did, however, speak to the newspaper on the condition his name was kept out of it and he said the whole situation looks incriminating. Yep, I’ll say.
Interestingly though, whether these payments to Rajoy were kickbacks or illegal often relies on one thing under Spanish law. Did he list the yearly payments on his taxes or were they just ignored? If he was paid 25,200 euros in kickback money and he didn’t list the money on his taxes, chances are Rajoy is in a lot of trouble.
Not surprising really when you’ve kept saying you have no knowledge of illegal kickbacks and that politicians are predominantly ‘efficient and honorable‘ and then your name comes up in a ledger like this. Now is it?
In fact, it looks like things may just be getting a little rockier for PM Mariano Rajoy in the Luis Bárcenas affair. Especially if he is implicated in the kickbacks and under-the-table payments everyone in Spain is now talking about.