The head of the Investigating Court number 9 of Alicante has issued an order agreeing to the prosecution of the former councilor for Partidas Rurales, Manuel Jiménez, and the exedil of Infrastructures, José Ramón González, both from the PP, for an alleged crime of administrative prevarication .
The judge thus agrees the transformation of the proceedings into an abbreviated procedure in the open case in relation to the alleged anomalies registered in three contracts entered into by the Departments of Rural Districts and Infrastructures on the same square in the rural district of La Alcoraya between 2021 and 2022 .
The investigation began last May after the complaint presented by the municipal group of the PSOE in which the alleged commission of a crime of prevarication for splitting contracts was pointed out, in which the former popular councilors were pointed out for the award of the three orders different.
The first, for the installation of a circuit of bio-healthy devices in the Plaza de la partida rural, was awarded in July 2021 for 54,000 euros plus VAT after the call for a contest; the second was agreed in October 2022 for 37,392.23 euros through a negotiated procedure (with the direct request of three budgets to companies proposed by the city council) to undertake the repair of a stage in the same square.
And, the third, for 36,677.50 euros plus VAT, was awarded by the same procedure on December 14, 2022 for the construction and assembly of a pergola also in that public space.
After analyzing the files and taking a statement from those investigated and a dozen witnesses, the investigator considers that there are sufficient indications of said division, concluding that “there was an omission of the corresponding procedure”, alluding to the need for a unique global contest.
Thus, it stands out that, “in attention to the amount in the subscription of the contracts, dividing their amounts into several actions, adjusted to the quantitative limit of the minor contract.”
In this sense, the judge argues that “said contracts should have been legally carried out through a public tender instead of a minor contract, resulting in a splitting of contracts.”
In the same way, it adds that these three commissions “were arranged directly by the agreement of the councilors of Infrastructures and Citizen Participation of the Alicante City Council with the agreement and signature of their respective heads of Service”.
In fact, the order provides for the prosecution of those two municipal technicians who were also listed as investigated while it resolves the free dismissal for a third technician, assigned to Infrastructure, and for the representative of the company that built the pergola, a company that had carried out maintenance work. reform in the home of former councilor Jiménez in mid-2021, as reflected in the order.
The indictment is provisional and challengeable by filing an appeal for reform within three days, or appeal, in this case, before the Provincial Court, within five days from its notification.
