Le Figaro Nice
A judicial report of around fifty pages revealed by
Nice-Matin and which
Le Figaro
was also able to obtain
further maintains the vagueness and controversies surrounding the management of the post-storm Alex construction sites.
In 2020, the Nice hinterland was devastated by torrential rains and ten people lost their lives.
Since then, the reconstruction work has struggled to progress, to be finalized and has crystallized tensions in these valleys of the Alpes-Maritimes where everyone knows each other.
In this document, the expert mandated by the administrative court of Nice points to management which
“was not rigorous”
and targets the metropolis chaired by Christian Estrosi (Horizons).
For their part, the companies only responded to order forms from the community, according to the report.
A paradigm shift in this affair which has now dragged on for a year.
Initially, the suspicions of “accounting anomalies” denounced by the president-mayor of Nice concerned the numerous companies commissioned by the metropolis to carry out the projects.
Would they have enriched themselves with public money?
A report to the courts triggered the opening of an investigation.
Request for declaration from the metropolis
Last week, things accelerated: as part of a judicial investigation transferred to the specialized interregional jurisdiction (Jirs) in Marseille, 21 people were placed in police custody and interviewed for long hours.
Among them, business leaders but also those very close to the mayor of Nice, namely his chief of staff and his general director of services.
Bank seizures of more than 6 million euros and luxury cars were also recovered by the gendarmes.
The leak of this report is all the more striking as it was carried out at the request of... the metropolis of Nice.
It concerns in particular the symbolic Madone de Fenestre road, in Saint-Martin-Vésubie (5 kilometers destroyed out of 12 in total, more than 20 million euros involved).
Expert Roger Ciais, also mayor of the town of Touët-sur-Var, summarizes his mission as
“findings necessary to determine whether the payments made by the metropolis correspond to the completion of the work ordered”
.
The achievements of the group of three companies (SLBTP, Venturi, Cachat), which concern 93% of the total cost, are carefully studied.
Orders, invoices and work actually carried out in the field are compared.
For the expert,
“the group carried out the works in accordance with the vouchers”
.
It is precisely this system of vouchers which seems to be at the heart of the general imbroglio.
“The financial management of this gigantic project based on a purchase order market is, to say the least, unsuitable,”
judges Roger Ciais in his report.
Despite
the “urgency”
, he emphasizes several times a lack of rigor.
“Reporting war”
Different transactions query according to the report.
These companies would have received more money than expected for the tasks to be carried out.
And this “excess” money would have been used by the company to pay for another’s purchase order.
“Indeed, the management of this site is really complicated
,” snaps the expert in the middle of a paragraph.
Submitted on February 8, this report is another element for investigators.
The latter also conducted a final hearing yesterday.
That of the technical director, who was abroad at the time of the vast dragnet.
“It’s a war of expert reports!”
, denounced the lawyer for the metropolis, Me Olivier Baratelli.
In the name of the community, he
“contests”
all of these writings.
“We have a contradictory report, carried out by an expert outside the department.
It is up to justice alone to decide
,” adds the lawyer.
If the expert, point by point, demonstrates that the work was correctly carried out in relation to the various purchase orders from the metropolis, for Me Baratelli, this is
“a lie”
.
Other expert opinions have been added to this vast file.
Not to mention the other documents recovered by investigators during the two searches.