The mayor of Sitges, Aurora Carbonell, from ERC, was arrested yesterday as part of an anti-corruption operation by the UDEF for alleged irregularities in the granting of subsidies to two social entities in the municipality. Carbonell spent the whole morning witnessing the search carried out by the National Police at the city’s Town Hall and was then taken to the Verneda police station in Barcelona, ??where she was released at approximately eight in the evening waiting for the judge to summon her to testify. Along with her, ten other people were arrested, including the councilor of ERC Jaume Monasterio, the secretary of the Consistory, a beach technician and the head of the Territory Area from previous mandates, they were also released yesterday in the night In the case there is one of a total of 13 people investigated, most of them senior officials of the City Council and four managers of the two beneficiary entities of the subsidies. Among those charged, there is the former mayor of Sitges, Miquel Forns, from CiU.
District Court 8 of Vilanova i la Geltrú is investigating whether the Council diverted money through grants and minor contracts to a cooperative called Taula del Tercer Sector de Sitges-Garraf between 2017 and 2022 and to another entity. The total amount of the fraud would be around 600,000 euros. The investigation is open for the crimes of embezzlement, embezzlement and falsification of documents in the awarding of grants and minor contracts in the past two mandates.
The police operation represents a hard blow for ERC before the general elections for a party that has always shown that it has not been marred by corruption. The UDEF has been investigating the management of the Sitges City Council since May 2022. The entities investigated received around 45,000 euros per year and at the same time signed minor contracts, awarded without public competition, for the cleaning or monitoring of the beaches or for the maintenance of the parks and gardens. The investigation points to the fact that the entity would charge twice for the same services. It is suspected that the City Council paid subsidies to hire people at risk of social exclusion and at the same time awarded a minor contract to the same entity so that the same people would work.
The case started from a complaint submitted by City Council intervention officials, led by the arrested mayoress, who made known the alleged irregularities that had been detected. The proceedings culminated in a UDEF report that motivated the opening of the judicial investigation and yesterday’s operation.
“The City Council, once it detected possible external irregularities, commissioned legal professionals to clarify the facts and stopped the subsidies, reviewed the files and started the process for the return of the subsidies that were not fully justified” , the Sitges Council explained in a statement. “The City Council has reports that ensure the absence of administrative and even less criminal responsibilities, which demonstrate the diligence of the Sitges City Council”, he concluded.
The mayor, Aurora Carbonell, took the oath of office on Sunday and is facing her second term at the helm thanks to a pact in extremis between ERC, Sitges Grup Independent, Verds-En Comú and Fets per Sitges. With the agreement, Junts, which had been the most voted force in the municipality, was unseated. He governed the previous term with the support of the Independent Group and Guanyem Sitges (a coalition of the CUP and the commons).
