Eduardo Díaz Hervás, manager of the Iturri company, investigated for alleged irregularities in the maintenance service of the mobile fleet of the Generalitat Fire Brigade, He declared this Friday before the judge that untimely billing for some of the vehicle repairs was a practice that had been going on for years. The reason, as he explained, was because the annual budget was running out and it had to be invoiced later in order to collect the service. This practice is the focus of the investigations that are being conducted in a Barcelona court following a complaint from the prosecution. The judicial process is open for the crimes of prevarication, embezzlement, false documentation and against the public administration.
Díaz Hervás, who has declared as a defendant, has rejected the accusations of the Mossos regarding the alleged anomalies in the contracting and awarding of the vehicle maintenance service and has stressed before the judge that “he is in a position to respond to each one of the aspects that the police include in their reports”, according to legal sources. He denied the existence of economic irregularities and the possibility that invoices were falsified, increasing the real economic amount or doubling them. The lack of budget, he stressed, has been a constant since the service was granted, now under suspicion, which forced, in his opinion, to carry out this operation.
Dias Hervás’ statement had to be suspended after an hour and when the prosecutor had the floor. And it is that the lawyers of the accused they have alleged that they had not been given by the court a documentation incorporated in the case and which dealt with some of the questions addressed to Iturri’s manager. The objective of the interruption of the interrogation is to “guarantee the right of defense”, according to legal sources. The representative of the company must appear next Friday the 25th to continue his statement. The appearance of Manel Pardo, former director of the firefighting service of the Generalitat, has also been postponed for that day and for the same reason. The Catalan Executive has announced that he will appear in the case as injured.
“fake” mechanics
The judge attributes high officials of the General Directorate of Prevention and Extinction of Fires and Firefighters of the Generalitat of having allowed “budgetary and accounting” irregularities in the maintenance of the vehicles of the body, a way of proceeding that he qualifies as fake mechanics according to the cars incorporated in the cause.
The magistrate of Court of Instruction number 14 of Barcelona who initially took charge of the matter (now the owner is in charge) maintained in the resolution summoning those under investigation to testify that “the management of the budget and public spending” of the service awarded to the Iturri company “is revealed so irregular and permanent over time” that there are “solid indications” that it may go “beyond a mere administrative infraction”. She specifies that in this operation “it has demanded the concurrence of the action of a multitude of public officials who have and have been entrusted with the task of controlling the way in which the public flow is to be distributed.” This action, “apparently known to many people and accepted, perhaps because it is repeated over time, can go beyond mere negligence,” he stresses.
Stop payment
Related news
This week, the Secretary General of the Interior, Oriol Amorós, announced in Parliament that he has halted the payment of maintenance bills for Firefighters’ vehicles to the Iturri company until an audit they have commissioned has been completed or until dictate a sentence, after they have detected delivery notes with “numerous irregularities”.
Amorós acknowledged that the award of the 2019 contract to Iturri -which was extended in 2020- during the previous stage of the Interior -when it was in the hands of Junts- was “not done well”, so the current management of the Ministry -directed by ERC- revoked it five days after assuming this department. He insisted that there was “no control system” and “it was not known how much money was left” of what was budgeted. As an example, he explained that there was a time lapse of three months between the order and the payment, so that work was “blind”, since repairs were ordered without knowing how much budget was left, which led to acknowledgments of debt that were pending for next year.