The trial for prevarication of the mayor of Viator (Almería) and several councilors will be held on January 23

ALMERÍA, 2 Jan. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Third Section of the Provincial Court of Almería plans to host on January 23 the trial against the mayor of Viator, Manuel Jesús Flores (PSOE), and four other members of his corporation in 2017 for an alleged continued crime of prevarication by the that the Prosecutor's Office requests 14 years of disqualification from public office or employment for each of them.

The Public Ministry maintains in its accusation that the defendants agreed during an extraordinary local government meeting to divide "without any justification" a works contract valued at more than 152,500 euros into three lots for smaller contracts and, consequently, to be able to carry out a " direct award without the need for bidding".

Specifically, both the mayor and the rest of the defendants, including the current PSOE spokesman in the Almería Provincial Council, Juan Manuel Ruiz, met on November 9, 2017 to initially approve the works project entitled 'Project of Urban Interventions: Plaza Candela, Cerro de la Cruz and Mirador del Cerro de la Cruz', whose contract execution budget amounted to the sum of 152,534.80 euros.

According to the prosecutor, "they divided, without any justification, said project into three lots, not exceeding the amount of any of them the sum of 50,000 euros, which made them minor works contracts that allowed their direct award without the need for bidding."

Thus, in that same session they awarded the minor works contract for the construction of Plaza Candela to one of the companies for an amount of 40,144.41 euros. However, from said lot "units of work to be executed were excluded without justifying it, which meant that, if it had been included, it would have far exceeded the limit for minor contracts."

Said work units were swings, which were offered in a separate contest. Two bidders appeared and they were awarded for the amount of 22,277.70 euros, "when the other offer was cheaper," says the prosecutor.

The second lot that was awarded directly was that of the Mirador del Cerro, for a sum of 45,477.28 euros. Eleven days later, in a new local government board, the minor work contract for the construction of Cerro de la Cruz was awarded to a third company, for a contract amount of 35,270.22 euros. This figure also meant "an amount higher by 2,763.62 euros than that set in the technical project."

"These adjudications were made without processing any file and without requesting a report from the Secretary-Intervention of the City Council, having this knowledge of the adjudication on the day the meeting of the governing board was held, and therefore could not carry out an audit of said adjudications before they are carried out", collects the Prosecutor's Office.

In addition, according to the provisional accusation, in the awarding of the lots as private contracts "the procedural and publicity rules have not been complied with, which should have been the corresponding ones based on the accumulated value of all the lots."