The first in-depth audit of the new municipal management in Catriel led to a criminal complaint for embezzlement involving outgoing officials and a company from Córdoba. The trigger was the search for a municipal fleet van that was missing.
Documentation and some key testimonies led the search to Córdoba. They found the vehicle in a workshop of the company Incisa, a company in Córdoba that, strikingly, won a competition for a public work in Catriel.
Unofficial sources maintain that the link comes from former mayor and provincial deputy Carlos Johnston. The municipality recovered the truck and also filed a criminal lawsuit against the company and the management of Viviana Germniaer for violating the bidding law.
As explained by the municipality’s legal advisor, Carola Ontiveros, article 8 was not respected and several surcharges were adjusted outside the regulations.
The tender that was awarded last March to the Incisa company had a budget of 198 million pesos, but the firm bid 278. As Ontiveros explained, article 8 of the law maintains that the tender It must be void if the offer is above the budget.
Finally, in a maneuver that for the lawyer is outside the law, the work was awarded for 254 million, 30% of the municipal budget.
In the period between the award and the end of the work that was announced last December, there were five readjustments, all of them illegal, as Ontiveros explained.
Former mayor Viviana Germanier inaugurated the work on December 8, two days before leaving office. It was a public paving work and construction of a curb at the busy intersection of Burma and Rosario streets due to alleged irregularities.
This event, which included the participation of the ruling political party in power, led to the resignation of the then Secretary of Public Works Yanina Alaniz, who assured that the work was not completed.
A month later, and after the first municipal audit, a criminal lawsuit was filed that Catriel’s prosecutor Analía Diaz must investigate.