Albiol will testify in the trial of a former Badalona councilor for alleged works without bidding
The mayor of Badalona (Barcelona), Xavier García Albiol (PP), will testify as a witness on Tuesday in the trial where the former city councilor David Gómez – who was part of the City Council in 2011, in Albiol's first term – is accused together to 10 businessmen of alleged prevarication and fraud to the Administration by, allegedly, commissioning works in municipal premises without bidding, for a total of 953,781.03 euros, which the City Council did not pay.
The trial began this Monday in section 7 of the Barcelona Court with the preliminary questions, in which, among other procedures, the lawyer Josep Riba, who represents the private prosecution of the Badalona City Council and at the same time also Albiol —who exercised the private prosecution also on an individual basis – has asked to withdraw the representation of the mayor stating that the prosecution is already ensured by the Consistory.
In this way, in the rest of the trial, Albiol will not exercise the private prosecution individually, and on Tuesday morning he will testify as current mayor after taking office for the third time last Saturday..
This Monday it has also been agreed that the defendants declare at the end of the trial, as their defenses have requested, and in the processing of previous questions it has also been verified that an expert report on the works on trial cannot be exposed in court because the expert who wrote it has died, but the court will take his writing into account to deliberate the sentence.
In this case, the Prosecutor's Office requests for the defendants a sentence of two years and three months in prison and disqualifications of up to 17 years for the alleged crimes of prevarication and fraud against the Administration, according to the indictment consulted by Europa Press.
After the 2011 municipal elections, Gómez became councilor for Social Services and Health, and also vice-president of the Municipal Institute of Personnel Services (IMSP), vice-president of Badalona Serveis Socials, member of the administration council of Marina Badalona and district councilor 6 of the city, which integrated the Artigues, Sant Roc and El Remei neighborhoods, and held these positions until October 2012.
Verbal contracts without report
During that time, Gómez had powers to award contracts and concessions that did not exceed 120,202.42 euros, and the prosecutor points out that, presumably knowing that he contravened the regulations on administrative contracting, “he contracted verbally, without technical reports justifying the need of its realization and in any case without following any procedure”, to four companies to carry out works in municipal premises, with several that in total amounted to 953,781.03 euros and that the City Council did not pay.
The prosecutor believes that Gómez acted in concert with the other 10 defendants, who were part of these companies as administrators, representatives or attorneys, and that “at all times they tried to obtain unjust enrichment” at the expense of the City Council, and awarded them directly works that due to their amount required bidding or public contracting according to the regulations.
The prosecutor's brief adds that the defendants delivered the invoices by hand or by email with “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” to simulate that it could be awarded as a minor contract.
In addition, in some cases, the commissioned works were not carried out or were not finished, and to avoid leaving documentary traces in the City Council they did not carry out feasibility studies, they did not have an endowment in the budgets, they did not process the processing file or process the mandatory reports or economic-financial feasibility studies.