Between 2007 and 2010, the plumbing company Infogelan carried out a total of 76 jobs for the Arrecife City Council, always less than 30,000 euros, for which it invoiced 1.2 million without carrying out any type of contract. Most of it was invoiced in 2007 and 2008, with invoices close to half a million euros each year.
Despite the fact that the company's corporate purpose is "plumbing, bazaars, real estate activities, freight transport and assembly and sale of renewable energy", for the Arrecife City Council and more specifically for the Parks and Gardens area, it carried out work such as the adaptation of sidewalks in the neighborhoods, works in the senior citizen centers of Titerroy and Altavista, (roof changes, ball court, electrical installations, etc.), removal of pine trees and improvement of facades, removal of cars and trays, construction in the Ramírez Cerdá park, sale of construction material, various trips and even the sculptures that were placed with the name of the neighborhoods, for which it charged almost 12,000 euros for each of the seven.
The company's administrator, Jesús Manuel Martín Brito, confessed in court that he paid these commissions to José Miguel Rodríguez, Councilor for Finance, and that before he entered the City Council he had never worked for Arrecife. In 2009 he provided 19 invoices, in 2008, 42; in 2007, 12 and in 2010, after Operation Unión, three more, making a total assumption of 1.2 million. For all the awards there was an obligation to present three offers, but in almost all the invoices it is specified that Infogelan's is the only offer presented.
All the invoices were charged to the Parks and Gardens area and the expense proposals in which it is stated that it is the only offer are signed by the councilor of that area, the Finance councilor and a municipal technician, without identifying the names.
Martín Brito said in his statement that he began to pay commissions because they delayed a payment and they demanded them to pay him, although he also acknowledged that despite demanding commissions, he maintained a friendship with José Miguel Rodríguez, whom he always paid at his house. He also said that another PIL councilor, also arrested in the case, Luisa Blanco, hired him to do work on her house in Playa Blanca, worth about 30,000 euros and that she only paid him 8,000 and planned to report her.
José Miguel Rodríguez also confessed to the commissions, saying that he had charged approximately ten percent of what Martín Brito invoiced, and that these commissions were distributed between him and three other councilors: Ubaldo Becerra, Luisa Blanco and Antonio Machín, when he replaced Ubaldo Becerra as head of the Department of Parks and Gardens. Becerra even declared in court that "asking for commissions was a custom."
S.G. / ACN Press