The trips of the State Lotteries president that put him in the spotlight

The president of State Lotteries becomes news today. Jesús Huerta Almendro has been traveling in recent years, a total of 113 trips from 2020 to 2024.

It is especially surprising in 2022, when the president of SELAE carried out the most official trips. That year, Jesús Huerta made a total of 33 official trips, of which more than ten were international.

This is reported by the newspaper THE OBJECTIVE, highlighting that among those international trips the destinations were the United States, Indonesia, Mexico, and Belgium. These represent a high percentage of the expenditure.

An expenditure also detailed by the aforementioned media. It amounts to a total of 120,000 euros ($127,000) as the cost of official trips made between 2020 and 2024. Additionally, these expenses include maintenance and travel in national and international trips.

The majority were justified as official visits to attend meetings, official representations at events such as award ceremonies, and attendance at international conferences.

Who is Jesús Huerta?

Huerta was born in the town of Jerez de la Frontera and is 58 years old.

Prior to his arrival at the head of the state entity, he trained in various fields. Huerta holds a degree in Law, in addition to having a master's in Health Management and a diploma in People Development Management.

From his professional life, it is known that from 2013 to 2017 he worked in the General Directorate of General Policy of the Junta. Subsequently, between 2017 and 2018, the year he made the leap to SELAE, he was the general director of Budgets of the Junta de Andalucía.

The other controversy that affected Huerta

The alleged scheme is based on a supposed rigging in public tenders. Something that would have been designed to benefit specific people in the process of obtaining licenses.

This was exclusively reported by the newspaper The Objective.

These licenses allow the awardees to manage the 52 commercial delegations of the State Lottery and Betting Society. An entity that depends directly on the Ministry led by María Jesús Montero.

It is noteworthy that the budget allocated to these tenders amounts to 25 million euros ($26.5 million) annually. Therefore, the economic scope of these contracts is high.

The new controversy puts the spotlight on Montero, but it is not the only one. It also focuses on the functioning of the Ministry of Finance and its relationship with the State Lottery and Betting Society. A key body in the management of gambling.

According to documents obtained exclusively by The Objective, it is suspected that the public tenders to award the commercial delegations of SELAE in different places such as Cuenca, Lugo, Zaragoza, and Segovia were allegedly manipulated to favor the current holders.

Allegedly, the public betting society carried out a fraud to arbitrarily benefit contractors who didn't meet the necessary requirements to obtain the contract with SELAE and manage a delegation. On other occasions, the contracts were justified with completely false facts.