He Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) has condemned the president of Junts, Laura Borrasto four years, six months and one day in prison, a fine of 36,080 euros and 13 years and one day of disqualification from the exercise of jobs or elected public offices and government functions for a continued crime of falsifying an official document and another of prevarication, having divided contracts to favor a friend, the computer Isaiah Herrerowhen he directed the Institution of Catalan Letters (ILC).
The magistrates propose that the Government grant him a pardon that leaves the sentence in two years so that he can avoid prison. Herrero has been sentenced to two years in prison and the businessman Andreu Pujol one year and two months, plus disqualification from contracting with the administrations. These are the arguments:
Lack of publicity and transparency
The sentence considers it proven that in the “direct” award to Herrero of the creation and maintenance works of the ILC website “all regular procedure” was dispensed withviolating “all the principles that govern public procurement,” including publicity and transparency, and free access for interested bidders.
But also those of “non-discrimination and equal treatment between candidates” and “free competition in setting prices”, a “determinant principle of efficient use of public funds managed”, in this case, by the institution .
The TSJC argues that the adjudication made by Borràs in favor of Herrero, “in addition to having been approved with absolute alienation to any contracting procedure”, lacks any description of the services to be provided.
In his opinion, “it was a contract designed, decided and executed with sole submission to the personal will of the person who had all the authority to contract and authorize its payment”, that is, Borras as director of the ILC & rdquor ;.
Were 18 contracts that should not exceed 18,000 euros eachthe limit to grant them by hand, and for a global amount of 336,000 euros (324,000+ VAT), between 2013 and 2017.
For the judges, Borràs, as director of the ILC and contracting body, awarded the jobs to Herrero “with full conscience” that he was commissioning some services through a “direct award that dispensed with the most elementary requirements.”
The crime of prevaricationin his opinion, it has been committed since the “verbal and direct adjudication” on his part, “disregarding and dispensing with the mandatory procedures in all administrative contracts of this magnitude”, as is the case.
The minor contracting system that was used, he stresses, “does not obey more than the need to give formal and administrative coverage to the payments required for the services contracted in the agreement” with Herrero. That is to say, a semblance of formal payment authorization was needed.
Hide the fractionation
The court estimates that Borràs acted with “full awareness” that with the adjudication through minor contracts “the works were being fictitiously divided” in a “direct way”. In this way, he emphasizes, “their payment was being made possible” without further obstacles that could come from the Intervention services of the Generalitat and the Sindicatura de Comptes.
To achieve this appearance, the magistrates emphasize, “a fiction” was produced in the apparent concurrence of three bidders in each of the files. Two of these budgets were created “artificially in execution of the action plan decided” by Borràs“with the sole purpose of concealing the prevaricating contract and exhausting its effects”, without “being discovered the illegality” in the subsequent inspection controls.
The judges emphasize that whatever ILC director gave “instructions” to Herrero about how to proceed to bill their work and the need to prepare the three budgets, two of them fictitious. According to the court, these services should have been submitted to an open procedure in which other persons or companies could participate.