The Barcelona public prosecutor’s office is investigating to the mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, and other municipal officials on the basis of a complaint by the Catalan Association of Lawyers for the Constitution for alleged irregular granting of grants.
The judicial investigation is underway for the alleged prevarication crimes, hiring fraud, embezzlement of public funds and influence peddling.
Public subsidies granted to the DESC Observatory, the Platform for People Affected by Mortgage (PAH), the Alliance against Energy Poverty (APE) and Engineers Without Borders (ESF) are being studied, with which Colau and the others maintained close personal and professional ties before taking up the posts ”. The total amount of these grants would amount to 3,433,621 euros, including 1,201,892.66 euros to the DESC Observatory. and 645,692.65 euros for Engineers Without Borders.
Besides Colau, the complaint lies with the former adviser Gala Pin, Deputy Mayor Laia Ortiz, City Councilor Vanesa Valiño -the sentimental partner of the former mayor Gerardo Pisarello-, councilor Laura Pérez, and the director of the DESC observatory, Irene Escorihuela, since this human rights center would have received the grants intended for the rest of the entities.
The spokesperson for the association of complainants, Manuel Miro, emphasizes that Colau worked for DESC as a housing coordinator from 2007 until a few weeks before becoming mayor, as did the former deputy mayor, Gerardo Pisarello, who was vice-president of the Observatory for seven years, and who left his post months before arriving to the municipal council. In addition, the former advisor Gala Pin was employed by DESC and by the Platform for people affected by mortgages in the years preceding her arrival at the Consistory.
The writing includes the grant of extraordinary grants which, according to the complainants, “are part of a continuing and the habit absolutely opposed to the term exceptionality or extraordinary “, and which would have been used to avoid an open call for tenders or a competition to grant them.
Presumably “it is a recurring and annual subsidy, that however, it would have been granted by direct appointment, and apart from any principle of public agreement, “justifying it as an exceptional subsidy, according to the complaint.
“It can only be interpreted, in all likelihood, as a secret way to overcome free competitive competition other entities and free auctions ”, which, according to the complainants, would be a way of exceeding the discretionary recruitment limit to which Colau is entitled as mayor.
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