A former PP councillor of Badalona City Council, along with several business owners, go on trial today in connection with illegal works carried out on behalf of the consistory between 2011 and 2012.
Specifically, some thirty work contracts valued at close to one million euro will be judged, which were not paid. One of the jobs was at the home of a former coordinator of the PP and an attempt was made to impute the cost to the City Council, camouflaging an invoice for non-existent works on public roads.
David Gomez, former PP councillor in Badalona, joined the municipal government as a result of the 2011 municipal elections and was appointed councillor for Social Services and Health, as well as vice president of the Institut Municipal de Serveis de Personal (IMSP) and of Badalona Serveis Socials, among others. He held his positions until October 2012, when he was expelled from the municipal government and from the party. As councillor he had the capacity to award contracts of up to 120,000 euro.
According to the prosecutor’s office, despite knowing that he violated the administrative contracting regulations, Gómez contracted various minor and major works in municipal premises in the 6th district of the city, of which he was mayor. He did it, according to the prosecution, verbally and without technical reports justifying the need. This was done with four winning companies and without following any administrative procedure. District 6 includes the neighbourhoods of Artigas, Sant Roc and El Remei.
The letter from the public ministry ensures that both the businesses and the councillor were aware that the cost of the works would have required a public contracting procedure. The businesses delivered the invoices directly and by hand or by email to the councillor, “indicating a concept that did not always correspond to the reality of the works carried out” and “always indicating a cost above the market price or deliberately dividing the object of the contract and its amount”.
In this way, it was simulated that the contract could be awarded as a minor contract. To do so, some works were not made or only partially made, they were invoiced for amounts higher than the market, or any documentary trace was evaded. In the latter case, the councillor commissioned the works without a prior order from the consistory, without a budget item. For this reason, the budgets and invoices of the companies were in the name of the City Council, but without indicating the department or the budget item that would pay it.
In fact, no feasibility study, file or report was made on the justification or purpose of the expense and the works, there was no specific budget allocation, it was not put on public display, nor were there any acts of verification of the works. Neither were environmental, safety or health impact studies carried out.
Among the thirty irregular works, the companies claimed more than 950,000 euro from the Badalona city council, but the consistory did not pay them. For all this, the prosecution accuses them of prevarication and fraud to the public administration, with the mitigation of undue delays. The trial, with about fifty witnesses, will last until the end of June.
The Prosecutor’s Office requests 2 years in prison and 9 years of disqualification for a former PP councillor.
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