The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, which has just presented its statement of qualification in one of the central pieces of the Unión case, has included illicit association among the crimes for which it accuses the former mayor of Arrecife, María Isabel Déniz, the historical leader of the PIL, Dimas Martín, the former secretary of the City Council, Felipe Fernández Camero, and the former head of the Technical Office, Rafael Arrocha.
An illicit association, according to the Penal Code, is one that has the purpose of "committing a crime or that, after being constituted, promotes its commission." In the case of Dimas and María Isabel Déniz, the prosecutor Luis del Río applies article 517.1, which punishes the "founders, directors or presidents" of these associations, for which he asks for them 3 years in prison, 9 years of disqualification and a fine of 13,500 euros only for this crime.
Regarding Fernández Camero and Arrocha, he considers that they were "active members" of the association, for which he demands that they be sentenced to 2 years in prison and the payment of a fine of 13,500 euros. These penalties are added to those requested for them for other crimes of bribery, falsification of public documents, prevarication, disclosure of secrets, fraud and activities prohibited to public officials, among others, linked to the awarding of contracts to Urbaser and FCC. In total, the Prosecutor's Office requests 19 and a half years in prison for Rafael Arrocha, 13 years for María Isabel Déniz, 13 for Dimas Martín and 11 and a half years for Felipe Fernández Camero in this piece of the Unión case.
"Fixed award before the file was started"
In his indictment, Luis del Río maintains that between the end of 2001 and the beginning of 2002, Dimas Martín, "as the top leader" of the PIL, and María Isabel Déniz, as mayor of Arrecife, "agreed" to "obtain funds illicitly from various private companies through the City Council." And for this, he points out that "it was necessary to have the important collaboration of two officials of the Corporation", that is, the secretary and the head of the Technical Office.
Thanks to the intervention of these two key officials in the Consistory, according to the prosecutor, Déniz and Dimas "could ensure that the processing of the corresponding contracting files was formally correct, so that it would not transcend to other officials, outside the plot, that the award was already rigged before such a file was started, which was nothing more than a mere artifice."
The indictment maintains that the accused "selected the companies to which the contracts were going to be awarded", and that "the decisive criterion was that they pay the requested bribes, and not that they offer the best conditions for the Municipal Corporation." For this, "an apparent concurrence of companies was simulated in the corresponding file, which was actually fictitious", and "they altered the prices and the rest of the conditions in which the municipal services were going to be provided."
More than 800,000 euros in bribes
Among the "illegal conduct" by the accused, the prosecutor points out that the first was "reaching agreements with companies that intended to be awarded contracts for works or services with the Arrecife City Council, demanding the collection of illegal commissions in cash and through various gifts or presents in exchange for being favored in the awarding of said contracts, to the detriment of others." Afterwards, he adds that "so that the companies could continue as contractors and collect for the services or works carried out, they had to continue paying various amounts and making gifts periodically to various public officials." According to the Public Prosecutor's Office, these four defendants alone received at least 757,000 in cash bribes and gifts from Urbaser, and 46,674 from FCC.
Once the contract was awarded, the Prosecutor's Office considers it proven that the accused "increased the amounts that the City Council had to pay to these companies for the services provided, through the exercise of the ius variandi or through the revision of contract prices, in exchange for the corresponding illegal commission, either through the payment of cash or through the payment of trips or other gifts."
In the case of the Argana pavilion, it was awarded for 8.7 million euros to FCC, which presented itself to the contest offering a reduction of 7.7 percent with respect to the base bidding budget. However, just after signing the contract, the City Council approved an amendment to the project, increasing the amount by 7.2 percent. In addition, two months later they awarded this company, without public tender, some "complementary works" in the pavilion worth 1.3 million euros.
The contracts with Urbaser increased their price by up to 500 percent
Regarding Urbaser, it came to have three contracts with the City Council (for waste collection, for street cleaning and for the maintenance of parks and gardens) and the amount paid by the Consistory ended up increasing from 200 to 500 percent. That is, the City Council ended up paying up to five times more than the initial price for which the service had been awarded.
In addition, in the case of the garbage collection contract, the construction of two warehouses was taken into account as a supposed improvement in the award, which were actually awarded without tender and fraudulently to Urbaser. Thus, to the annual price of the contract, which was 2,194,699 euros, they added the execution of a work of 3,937,733 euros and another of 2,334,077.
In his report prior to the awarding of the contest, Rafael Arrocha pointed out that those "optional" offers that Urbaser raised "are considered very necessary." And he did so, according to the prosecutor, "hiding that clause 20 of the specifications required that the bidding company have, at least, an industrial warehouse suitable for the needs" of the service. That is, that "the facilities should have been borne by the contractor", and yet they were billed to the Consistory, with an extra charge of more than 6 million euros.
