The alleged irregularities were committed as a result of a consulting award for the drafting of the river basin management plan in Catalonia.
The Court of Barcelona has sentenced four former officials and technicians of the Catalan Water Agency (ACA)including the one who was its director Manuel Hernandez, for the alleged finger award in 2008, during the time of the tripartite government, of consultancy reports. Two other businessmen are involved in the plot. One of them is Joan Lluis Queradministrator of Auding and who had previously been manager of the ACA (2000-2004) and, later, during the executive of Artur Mas (CiU), held the presidency of the public company Infrastructures of the Generalitat.
The court attributes to Manuel Hernández a crime of prevarication and another of disclosure of reserved information and to Quer one of prevarication and another of use of reserved information, and they are acquitted of embezzlement. In total, six people have been sentenced. The sentence maintains that the hiring of some works to improve the quality of the waters was irregular and deliberately benefited the Temporary Union of Companies (UTE) awarded, represented by Quer. “The contracting carried out by the Agency had to guarantee the principles of publicity and free competition, and must be governed by the regulations of public contracts”, the resolution specifies, The ruling concludes that a fraudulent contracting was indeed carried out and with the use of privileged information that benefited those hired.
The magistrates indicate that the four ex-charges and technicians convicted “aware of the duty of secrecy that their status as officials obliged them” “agreed” to anticipate confidential and privileged information “regarding the future bidding for a contract. The events date back to September of 2007, when the ACA, which then depended on the Department of the Environment (directed by Francesc Baltasar, from ICV), processed by open competition a consultancy contract for the drafting of the river basin management plan in Catalonia.
Open to other budgets
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In the end, the contract, for an amount of 3.75 million, was awarded in January 2008 to the Temporary Business Union (UTE) DMA-Management, a group of three engineering consultancies represented by Quer. The director of the ACA, Manuel Hernandez, He signed it. In that same contract it was specified that it was open to other complementary budgets, which in fact allowed the successful bidder to freely choose to offer them to other companies as subcontractors. And that’s what happened. Before the tender, the officials and technicians of the agency “maintained contacts and meetings with workers of the companies integrated in said UTE”, with the aim of “sharing and exchanging” basic and essential information for the preparation of the technical specification sheet “. All this, the judges specify, “caused serious damage to the remaining bidders to the public cause.”
The prosecution, which demanded six years in prison, defended that between October and December 2008, the defendants constituted a “formal artifice to mask an illicit benefit” in favor of the UTE DMA-Gestió. The ACA formalized a total of 38 contracts for complementary or additional works for 3.9 million euros, except for three of them, the rest exceed 18,000 euros, the maximum limit for direct award.