The Prosecutor's Office of the Provincial Court of Granada has archived the proceedings that it opened last September against the popular mayor of the Granada City Council of Albolote (18,198 inhabitants) and the five members of the Local Government Board (three from the PP and two from Cs), that in June of last year they voted in favor of hiring a company, Hufoca Multiservicios SLU, for the local street cleaning service, in a particularly fast procedure and with some administrative deficiencies.
Until then, this service had been covered by the council itself with a group of 30 people who were selected from a job bank created for that purpose.
The original complaint came from the local PSOE, which understood that an alleged crime had been committed that could be classified as prevarication or embezzlement.
The complaint was based on certain deficiencies detected in the processing of the file, mainly an unusual speed in awarding the service, certain temporal details in the documents –some were dated before others that should have been earlier–, as well as an unfavorable report from the General Secretariat, the General Comptroller and the head of the Contracting Service, in which they warned of the criminal responsibilities of adopting that decision.
The mayor, Salustiano Ureña García, ignored this report and went ahead with the procedure that finally ended up granting Hufoca Multiservicios SLU the cleaning contract for the town, for a value of 340.
000 euros for a year of service.
The company had been established a few days before the signing of the contract and there was no evidence that its managers had previous experience in the sector.
The conclusion of the Prosecutor's Office, which ordered an investigation into the matter by the Civil Guard, is that "although it is true that the Local Government Board [the government team, led by the mayor] finally agreed on the award and contracting of the service regardless of the legally established procedure, it is the duty of all municipalities to provide the cleaning service, this being a mandatory minimum that must be provided by all local entities.
Ureña then explained that the entry into force of the labor reform in March 2022 prevented him from maintaining the cleaning service with workers from the temporary labor pool that the City Council had at that time.
That forced him to look for a private alternative since, he said, he had no other choice.
There was no time to
functionalize
those who cleaned the streets then and Hufoca was used, who has been performing the service ever since, after an extension signed in January of this year.
Now, the Prosecutor's Office admits administrative irregularities -and urges the plaintiffs to go to the contentious-administrative channel if they want to continue with the case-, but given that at that time it was not possible for the City Council to continue taking charge of the cleaning of Albolote with its own workers, considers necessary the measures that the consistory took to ensure the hygiene of the town.
In conversation with EL PAÍS, Ureña has been "satisfied with the decision of the Prosecutor's Office because it is not only limited to filing the proceedings but also recognizes that there is no criminal offense."
Also, explains Ureña, "the prosecutor says that there was no personal interest or anyone who benefits from the contract."
The decree on file of the prosecutor Emilia A. Rancaño indicates that the reform "made it necessary to outsource the service or create assigned structural positions in the workforce" to this service and that no one in the government team was aware that this award was unfair, which eliminates the possible crime of prevarication.
The mayor of Albolote explained that in a few weeks the process that will allow 12 of the 30 workers from that original job bank to become permanent staff of the City Council "and they will begin to work in the cleaning service" will be completed.
"The company will be in charge of the city center and our staff will be in charge of the urbanizations," adds Ureña.
