The accusations of the Collective of Public Officials Clean Hands regarding Begoña Gómezwife of the President of the Government, Pedro Sanchez, have unleashed a real dust storm. The union led by the former National Front politician, Miguel Bernard, demanded the summons as investigated of the ‘first lady’ of Moncloa for alleged commission of crimes of influence peddling and corruption in the private sector – accusations on which this Thursday the organization has backed down, stating that they could have arisen from ” fake news.” The PSOE leader issued a letter to the public announcing that he was canceling his agenda to take time to reflect on whether or not it made sense to continue in his position, since he is “a man deeply in love” with the woman. of the. Such has been the commotion that it is worth answering some questions about Gómez to understand the nature of the accusations.
The president’s wife is linked to Globalia -The Government granted Air Europa a million-dollar rescue due to the pandemic- and with the businessman Carlos Barrabés, whom she recommended and was awarded a public contract. Barrabés is one of the promoters of the Master in Competitive Social Transformation at the Complutense University of Madrid, which is currently directed by Gómez, who also graduated in Marketing from the ESIC of Madrid, and who has a master’s degree in Business Administration, a fact that has been prosecuted after weeks of debates and appearances.
In addition, she says she is “passionate about sustainability” and has collaborated with organizations such as Oxfam Intermón or Amnesty International. She was also director of commercial outsourcing consulting for the Inmark group until her move to Moncloa in 2018. Right after arriving at Moncloa she was appointed director of the ‘Africa Center’ of the Instituto de Empresa. A position that he left in 2022 after four years.
One of the questions that arises about Gómez’s connection with the UCM is whether he charges for directing this master’s degree, and the answer is no.. This is reflected in a file on the university center’s own transparency portal, which indicates that the UCM does not directly pay the teacher, as El Español reported this Thursday. “María Begoña Gómez Fernández does not receive any salary for the exercise of her responsibility as director of the Extraordinary Chair for Competitive Social Transformation, as occurs with all other extraordinary Chairs,” says the report. Previously, she had worked as a teacher in a course of the General Foundation of the UCM. She taught techniques fundraising and this subject later became a master’s degree of which she was first co-director. In 2020, she headed the newly created chair.
Regarding the financing of said master’s degree, in the aforementioned file they state that “the degrees offered by the Permanent Training Center, as is the case of the Master’s degree that is now of interest, They are self-financing with expected income (…): prices paid for registration and enrollment, public and private subsidies, sponsorships, patronage or donations or other sources.” The number of students Gómez has taught during the three editions that it has lasted is unknown. this training. One of them was canceled due to COVID-19.
The complaint from Clean Hands also alludes to an agreement between Air Europa and said academic center, to whom the airline agreed to give 40,000 euros per year. However, the pandemic paralyzed this agreement and only a few flights to a tourism conference in London were covered. The agreed figure was not transferred to the IE Africa Center.
Air Europa signed this agreement through Wakalua, the innovation hub that is part of the Globalia holding company. Of those 40,000 euros, 15,000 were intended to pay for flights related to the activity of the IE Africa Center. Although the agreement did not materialize in the expected economic manner, the Wakalua-Begoña Gómez relationship did mean that she attended the London event, the African Solutions.
