Judicial siege on the president of the Ibiza Council for a contract with a PP colleague

The president of the Consell de Ibiza, Vicent Marí, during the presentation of six hybrid buses, on February 10, 2023 in Ibiza. Germán Lama / Europa Press (Europa Press)

The president of the Island Council of Ibiza, Vicent Marí (PP), will have to declare on June 2 as being investigated for prevarication, influence peddling and coercion after a complaint by the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor.

Marí is the first regional parliamentarian charged in a legal case since a year ago the Balearic Parliament repealed the appraisal of regional deputies, who since then have to be tried in common courts, like other citizens, and not in the Court Superior Court of the Balearic Islands.

The Investigating Court 4 of Ibiza has summoned Marí for June 2 —after several postponements— just a few days after the regional, island and local elections on May 28.

The president of the Consell is accused of irregularly processing a contract of 250,000 euros through the emergency route for the preparation of a campaign to promote tourism in Ibiza.

The contract was awarded, against the criteria of the Intervention, to the company Fuera de Escena Ibiza SL, managed by a fellow party member.

In the complaint, Anticorruption reports that Marí approved a decree on June 5, 2020 to declare the emergency processing of a contract of 250,000 euros to develop a campaign under the title La Vida

.

"It is evident that the procedure was not proceeding through the emergency route, because it was not a necessary measure to fight the pandemic," says the prosecutor, who points out that the principles of "competition and publicity" were violated so that any entity would have able to choose to appear on equal terms.

Barely two months after the approval of the contract, the general intervention of the Ibiza Council revealed in a report "serious deficiencies and irregularities" throughout the file.

Marí ignored the objections of the officials and, a month later, signed a decree in which he gave free rein to pay the company Fuera de Escena Ibiza a first invoice of 164,257 euros.

For the Prosecutor's Office, there are indications that this company took advantage of personal relationships with the highest island authorities to achieve its award.

The company was created in 2013, and Miriam Juan, who was number 10 on the electoral list of the PP to the Santa Eulària des Riu City Council in 2007, a municipality of which Marí was mayor between that year and 2019, appeared as sole administrator. A few days before the opposition groups in the Consell accessed the contracting file, the company fired its administrator and replaced her sentimental partner, until then a proxy.

During the years 2016 and 2020, the Santa Eulària City Council issued 570 invoices to the company Fuera de Escena for a value of 1.2 million euros without the corresponding contracting procedure, it states in the complaint.

For the Prosecutor's Office, when Marí issued by decree a note of objection to the intervention of the Island Council, he participated "directly" in the procedure when he had "a direct personal interest" in the company's administrator, since both had attended the same list electoral.

Despite the fact that the awarded campaign had to be advertised at the FITUR tourism fair in Madrid in 2021, the investigation concludes that "the successful bidder did not fulfill the contract."

Workplace Harassment

The Prosecutor's Office also accuses Marí of coercion and workplace harassment towards the Consell controller who questioned the cleanliness of the contract.

“The president wanted the official to change her report with threats and coercion.

He did it through threats of dismissal and pressure ”.

According to the complaint, the "violent pressure" dates back to the period in which the victim was an auditor of the Santa Eulària City Council when Marí was the mayor.

At that stage, she verified that irregularities were being committed because suppliers were contracted directly and bills were paid through extrajudicial recognition of credit by mayoral decree or plenary agreement.

"She herself states that the mayor yelled at her and yelled at her before the reparo notes issued," the complaint states.

The official moved to the Island Council as deputy controller and during that period, in which Marí continued as mayor in Santa Eulària, there were no incidents between them.

Coinciding with the arrival of Marí to the Consell in 2019 after winning the island elections, the position of auditor remained vacant, which the regional deputy promised the official, whom he began, according to the Prosecutor's Office, to threaten demanding that she behave "good" and to review the intervention reports before their presentation in plenary to avoid negative opinions.

The situation became tense until, according to the Prosecutor's Office, the deputy slipped his intention to transfer the official to the management area, accusing her of causing problems in the operation of the institution.

In the plenary session of September 25, 2020,

As a result of this episode in plenary, the official looked for another job because the relationship with the president of the Consell caused her "stress and anxiety".

Finally, she moved on a service commission to the Ripollet City Council (Barcelona).

During those months, she repeatedly went to the doctor for anxiety problems, feeling "questioned and disqualified" and ended up taking possession of the position in this consistory in November 2020. "The employment relationship between the president of the Consell and the deputy controller can be considered as labor harassment or coercion" maintains the Prosecutor's Office.

The case was initially denounced by the PSOE, which took the file to the Anti-Corruption Office of the Balearic Islands and, after examining the matter, forwarded it to the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor of the Balearic Islands, which filed the complaint in a court in Ibiza.

Marí denounced this Tuesday that she is the "victim of political persecution" that has been based on a "hoax" invented by the PSOE of the Balearic Islands, a party that she has accused of acting "out of revenge".

At the headquarters of the regional Parliament, where he is a deputy for Ibiza, Marí has ​​lamented before the media what he considers a media trial for which he has been accused of being "guilty of everything".

"What does not kill me makes me stronger.

I am very calm, with my head held high and very proud of what I have done” he said in reference to the investigation opened for the award of this contract, a procedure about which he said that he “would do it again”.

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