What’s going on in the valleys ravaged by storm Alex? Infrastructure reconstruction projects, launched since these floods of October 2020 to allow the villages of the Alpes-Maritimes affected to recover, have been stopped for a few weeks. They are in the sights of justice. The public prosecutor of Nice confirms this Friday, while searches are underway, that an investigation has been open since March 13 on suspicion of “embezzlement of public funds”.
Investigators from the gendarmerie’s research section notably landed in the premises of the Nice Côte d’Azur metropolis, at the town hall of Nice. And “other searches” are “to come”, said the prosecutor Xavier Bonhomme to 20 minutes.
“Accounting anomalies”
They follow a report from the mayor of Nice and president of the metropolis, received by the prosecutor on February 28, on “serious breaches of compliance with the rules of public accounting”. Following this, a preliminary investigation was therefore carried out for “embezzlement of public funds by a person holding public authority or responsible for a public service mission” but also for “fraud, forgery, use of forgery” and ” concealment” of these offenses, specifies the magistrate in a press release.
On Wednesday, the director general of metropolitan services announced that he had “undertaken precautionary measures to suspend agents” “following internal checks which revealed accounting anomalies in the payment of certain construction sites or work operations in the valleys Tinée and Vésubie”.
Up to ten in prison
In a letter addressed to Christian Estrosi on March 23 and sent to the press on Wednesday, the deputy of the Alpes-Maritimes Éric Ciotti was moved by a “slowdown in the pace of construction sites”. The boss of LR worried that “various works”, necessary to “preserve investments already made on roads, networks, river banks, structures and tourism activities”, were “at a standstill”. He also explained that he feared that “the financial difficulties” of the metropolis were in question.
If some sites are actually on a break, officially, according to the community, it is to respect the procedure initiated with the justice system. The investigations are continuing. In the meantime, the public prosecutor recalls in his press release that “the main penalties incurred for the offense of embezzlement of public funds by a person holding public authority or responsible for a public service mission are ten years of imprisonment. imprisonment and a fine of one million euros.