The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office has put the finishing touch to an era of corruption of the extinct Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya (CDC), a party led for years by Jordi Pujol and later by Artur Mas. The famous 3%, the percentage of bribe that businessmen had to pay to achieve a public award in Catalonia, will go to trial with thirty defendants, with 31 works under scrutiny. Sentence requests that exceed 20 years in prison will be analyzed by the National High Court.
The investigation has indirectly certified that the party, the Generalitat and businessmen were in collusion to maintain a system, at least during 2008 to 2015, in which all beneficiaries came out, except the administration. Now they will go to trial and will have to answer all the evidence against them.
For Anticorruption, this is one of the most paradigmatic adjudications of the 3% case. The budget for the work was 85.3 million euros for the construction of the road tunnels in Plaça de les Glòries, the contracting entity being Barcelona d'Infraestructures Municipals, S. A. (Bimsa), of which the defendant was the general manager Ángel Sánchez and Antoni Vives, president of said company and deputy mayor for Urban Planning.
The works entailed the construction of a tunnel under Plaza de las Glòries between Badajoz and Castillejos streets and the creation of a park in the upper part. "Antoni Vives together with Germá Gordó - former Secretary of Government of the Generalitat and
Minister of Justice of the Generalitat-, and other unspecified persons, decided that the adjudication of such tender be granted to a joint venture that did not have any technical capacity, as a consequence of which there were delays in the execution of the work and a diversion in its execution of a large entity, even higher than 50% of what was budgeted, ”says the Anti-corruption indictment. The cost overrun, finally, was more than 60%, and the delays exceeded a year and a half in the execution works.
For the prosecutor, one of the entries found in the agenda of the beneficiary builder, dated December 1, 2014, is relevant. "GLORIES. UTE with Comsa. Arnó Sell the UTE at the highest level. President". According to the brief, in December 2014, the ex-consejero delegate of Copisa Xavier Tauler Ferre met with Vives on the topic of Glòries. Among the evidence, there are emails between Tauler and an employee of the company in which a future meeting between the employer and the Generalitat is arranged for December 19, 2014. Three days later, he meets with the then treasurer of CDC Andreu Viloca and that same day 22, the day of the Christmas Lottery, Copisa enters 40,000 euros in Catdem.
In parallel, Gordó holds a series of meetings with the other businessmen that make up the UTE for this award. On January 15, 2015, Viloca and Tauler meet again and that same day another donation of 25,000 euros arrives from the construction company. May 11, 2015, Viloca asks Tauler on Whatsapp when they can have a coffee. Four days, Copisa pays 25,000 euros to CatDem.
The Barcelona City Council only recognized a 19.6% extra cost for the UTE. In addition, for the first time in the history of the city, the City Council rescinded the contract and called a new tender in lots in which the companies of the previous joint venture were not allowed to participate due to their suspected link with the 3%. The works were paralyzed for months.
The transformation of this central space in Barcelona was announced during the time of Mayor Joan Clos, it was agreed with the neighbors during the time of Jordi Hereu, the works began with Trias and have been completed during Colau's mandate.
The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office recounts about thirty works that for years were rigged in exchange for donations and for which now the CDC treasurers, politicians on duty and businessmen will sit on the bench of the accused, to put black on white the corruption of a epoch. One of the works was that of the eastern breakwater awarded by the Barcelona Port Authority, with Sixte Cambra as president and Antoni Vives as vice president, both defendants in this proceeding.
The work was awarded in March 2012 after triangular contacts between the party, the top officials of the APB and the businessmen, in this case the joint venture made up of ACSA Obras e Infraestructuras, Copisa and Benito Arnó e Hijos. The work was initially awarded for 39.7 million euros, in exchange for 100,000 euros in donations.
According to the brief, there are appointments and meetings between the accused Xavier Tauler Ferré (Copisa), businessman Francesc Boixadós, CDC strongman Germà Gordó, and treasurer Andreu Viloca, "aimed at obtaining or arranging this tender".
The prosecutor has been served by the agendas that were seized by the Civil Guard and that have now been used to unravel the entire operation of that famous 3%. The meetings began in November 2011. Viloca notes: “-Germà-Obra Port 40 M/Consorci Enseny”-.
The purpose of the meetings was, according to the Prosecutor's Office, "to agree on the award of the work to improve the "East Dock of the Port" in exchange for a covert delivery of money as a donation, to two CDC foundations: CatDem and Forum Barcelona.
Thus, on March 28, 2012, the Presidency of the Board of Directors of the Port Authority of Barcelona awarded the work to this joint venture, for a final amount of 25.1 million euros. In exchange for this tender, Copisa made donations for a total of 100,000 euros.
The 'modus operandi' is similar to the previous one. The same company, Copisa, was awarded this work, for an amount of 5.7 million euros, two years later, in May 2014. As happened in the previous one, three days before the announcement of the tender, the person in charge of the construction company makes a donation of 25,000 euros to CDC through its foundations after meeting with former treasurer Viloca.
In the end, the award ended up being 9.8 million euros. "These donations determined the award, operating the decisive influence of the CDC governing bodies on those responsible for BIMSA", collects the indictment.
The works began in 2014 and ended shortly before the municipal elections of 2015 with strong neighborhood opposition. During the inauguration as mayor of Barcelona, Xavier Trias suffered a neighborhood escrache. So much so that the pending sections of this remodeling - the ends in the Plaza de la Carbonera and Plaza España - have remained unfinished pending an agreement with the neighbors that will last forever.
As soon as the tender for this work was announced, in June 2014, the businessmen who were ultimately beneficiaries met with Josep Antoni Rosell, at that time the general director of Infrastructures, the public company awarded the contract. The amount would be 14.4 million euros and the beneficiaries, the joint venture formed by Benito Arnó e Hijos, Oproler and Mercadomotika.
"To promote the award of this contest", the businessmen Sergio Lerma and Josep Manel Bassols invited Rosell. Thus, between October 16 and 24, 2014, there is a series of communications taken from the seized mobile phone of Bassols, "which are intended to send various invitations to Rosell Polo to attend football matches in Madrid between Real Madrid and F. C. Barcelona, with the corresponding transfer to Madrid, also adding a meal, at the La Trainera restaurant, paid with the corresponding Oproler company VISA (...) Finally, the contract was signed on November 11, 2014, favored by the gifts received by Rosell”, collects the letter.
The construction of 3.7 kilometers of route with five new stations connects the city from north to west in a kind of urban metro that has increased the number of Ferrocarrils users in the city by improving the connection with the rest of Vallès and Barcelona. The works took nine years, five more than planned and two of them paralyzed by budget cuts by the government of Artur Mas. The inauguration of the complete layout took place in July 2017, just the last day that the now Minister of Territory, Juli Fernández, served as mayor.
Awarded in March 2015 to Copisa for 9.5 million euros. In this case, the businessman Tauler negotiated directly with Rosell the award of the contract. For this work, he gave CatDem 50,000 euros although according to the indictment the company Copisa would have paid a total of 535,000 euros in donations to "CatDem" between 2008 and 2014. The Diagonal Campus is located in Sant Adrià de Besòs.
