Las Noticias de ABC: Montero, salpicada por el caso Koldo, y el ‘ladrón’ silencioso de los embalses españoles

Hoy en Las Noticias de ABC te contamos que la vicepresidenta primera, María Jesús Montero, se ve salpicada por el caso Koldo, al haber conocido de las irregularidades a principios de 2022 y, sin embargo, no haber hecho nada al respecto. Además, seguimos pendientes de la sequía que castiga a España, y nos fijamos en un curioso 'ladrón' que roba capacidad a los embalses españoles: los sedimentos que se acumulan en el fondo de los pantanos.

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
Good morning. It is Monday,March 4, and this is the current
day of the day. ABC's news. The Coldo case adds a
new name to the list of peoplewho were aware of irregularities in the purchase
of masks and is none other thanthe First Vice President, María Jesús Montero.

(00:24):
According to BCS, the General Interventionof the State Administration prepared in two
thousand twenty- one an audit inwhich it collected and denounced several irregularities detected
in the management of State ports tohire the purchase of masks from the company
of Coldo García. This report wassent to the Ministries of Transport and Finance,
and Montero, Minister of the latter, did not take any action to

(00:47):
try to clarify these anomalies. Eventhough the report was on his desk from
the first weeks of two thousand twenty- two. According to the audit of
the General Intervention, there were severalactions that were contrary to the law or
or, or, especially in relationto the acquisition of eight million masks for
an amount of twenty million euros tothe company of coldo garcía management solutions that
was chosen by ports of the State, despite the fact that until that moment

(01:11):
it had no invoicing. Sources consultedby ABC have indicated that several employees of
the public company confirmed to the GeneralIntervention that the choice of this company occurred
by specific decision of the Ministry ofTransport. In economics, the European Union
is pushing Spain to raise the billingthreshold to determine what a big company is.

(01:36):
The studies on the productivity deficit ofour economy point to the scarcity of
large companies in our productive fabric asa cause and, moreover, points to
a handful of regulatory thresholds inhibiting thegrowth of companies. But now the picture
has worsened because of the inflationary spiralthat, through the rise in prices,
has triggered the turnover of companies abovethe thresholds that so far are SNRN'

(01:57):
s size. This has led Brusselsto detect the potential distortions caused by this
situation, in which companies with reducedstructures have assumed burdens designed for larger companies.
To avoid such misalignments, the EuropeanUnion adopted a directive at the end
of last year to force countries toraise those thresholds and, for example,

(02:20):
here in our country, the thresholdof€ 700 zero of maximum turnover that
allowed a company to be considered microenterprisenow rises to€ 1900 zero. Small
businesses will be considered as such ifthey invoice less than EUR 10 million,
and medium- sized enterprises will thusbe certified if they do not exceed EUR
50 million of company turnover. Weare still awaiting the drought that punishes the

(02:47):
peninsula to the scarcity of water.We must add a new element that goes
rather unnoticed, the waning space ofthe swamps. According to experts, our
reservoirs have a huge layer of sediment, covering their bottom that has never been
made and, although it may seema minor problem, it turns out that
these residues could be reducing. Theactual capacity of our reservoirs between ten and

(03:08):
fifteen percent. This loss of waterstorage is a slow and silent problem that
often goes unnoticed, but it cango further if no action is taken to
address the problem. According to theanalysis of nine hundred and seventy- eight
large Spanish dams carried out in twothousand twenty- two, the storage of
water was already eighteen percent lower thanthe constructed capacity, but if solutions are

(03:31):
not found, it could reach twenty- eight percent. In the middle of
the century. Artificial intelligence is openingits way in all areas and that of
the war was to be no lessthe hand of the correspondent in Berlin,
Rosalía Sánchez. Today you can learna little more how the armies of half
the world prepare for battle, integratingtools designed and controlled by new technologies into

(03:53):
their arsenal. The U S militaryhas already been experimenting with combat aircraft XI
piloted by artificial intelligence, to whichthey have had to teach that killing their
own operator because it does not letthem down enemies is not the best decision.
In addition, they will also beable to learn more about the drones

(04:14):
deployed by both Russia and Ukraine duringthe war and will find, as our
correspondent says, that no army canafford to dispense with artificial intelligence in this
new art of the 21st century war. So far today' s news,
but remember you can listen to ABCnews whenever you want. On major podcast

(04:34):
platforms like Evox or Spotify. Youcan also ask your smart speakers and,
of course, you can access thisnewsletter from our website. ABC is