A judge in Tarragona has proposed bringing two senior executives from the Consorci d'Aigües de Tarragona to trial, the director of legal services Jesús Martín García and former president Joan Alginet Aliau, following the complaint filed by the compliance officer that the entity itself had hired. The magistrate sees indications of alleged crimes of prevarication and workplace harassment linked to the hiring of an IT management company.
The case stems from a complaint by a worker who was subsequently dismissed for disciplinary reasons by the same body and to whom the Consorci attributes harassment of several staff members. This is where the main friction of the procedure is concentrated, because the complainant of alleged internal irregularities maintains that his dismissal was a reprisal, while the entity links it to homophobic and sexist behavior reported by five employees.
The judge places the annulled tender at the center of the case
The judicial resolution links the indications of prevarication and workplace harassment to the hiring of an IT management company. That tender had already been annulled by the Catalan Public Sector Contracts Tribunal, one of the precedents that have ended up pushing the matter into the criminal sphere.
In addition to Jesús Martín García and Joan Alginet Aliau, the procedure originates from a complaint filed by the compliance officer incorporated into the Consorci in March 2023. One of those complaints about the annulled award reached the Public Prosecutor's Office and ended up in Investigating Court number 6 of Tarragona.
In parallel, the same worker prepared a report on alleged water diversions from the Ebro River above the concession of the body that manages the mini-transfer. Both the Ebro Hydrographic Confederation and the Office Against Fraud of Catalonia dismissed these claims.
The Consorci will appeal while defending the disciplinary dismissal
The entity has announced that it will file an appeal against the judicial order. It has also expressed its "absolute respect" for the procedure and reiterated the presumption of innocence of the individuals involved, along with its willingness to provide the judicial authority with any requested documentation.
The Consortium's position clashes with the complainant's version of the origin of his departure. The organization maintains that the worker was dismissed for disciplinary reasons due to harassment of various staff members, while the professional rejects these accusations and maintains that his dismissal was due to irregularities he had reported to various bodies.
That disciplinary file was based on complaints from five workers for homophobic and sexist behavior. A report from the Labor Inspectorate corroborated these facts, although the compliance officer denies them.
The case opened in the Court of Instruction number 6 of Tarragona is being investigated for alleged prevarication and workplace harassment, and affects Jesús Martín García, director of legal services of the Consortium, and Joan Alginet Aliau, former president of the entity.