Salvador Illa maintains confidence in his chief of staff despite being judicially investigated
A judge in Martorell has put Eduard Rivas under scrutiny for various public contracts when he was mayor of Esparreguera
BarcelonaPresident Salvador Illa defended his chief of staff, Eduard Rivas, this morning, after his involvement in alleged irregularities when he was mayor of Esparreguera (Baix Llobregat) came to light. Rivas, who led the town hall of this municipality for the PSC between 2015 and 2024, is being investigated as part of a process that probes public contracts from the council, as reported by El Periódico, which explains that the Mossos confiscated the socialist official's mobile phone three months ago. Illa, for the moment, has reaffirmed his "full confidence" in his collaborator.
"Given the information published about the chief of staff of the President of the Generalitat, we express our full confidence in him," sources from the Presidency reacted in a statement, and assured that Rivas is the "first to be interested" in the investigation being clarified "as soon as possible." The same sources assure, in this regard, that the former mayor, who left his municipal post almost two years ago when Illa came to power, has "total willingness to cooperate in whatever is necessary."
The information from
El Periódico explains that on January 15, the police confiscated Rivas's mobile phone by order of a judge from Martorell. The device has not yet been returned to him and, according to the aforementioned newspaper, the download and analysis of the information it contains is still pending. All this, within the framework of an investigation that would revolve around irregularities of the Fundació per a la Inclusió Laboral (FIL), based in Esparreguera and dedicated to offering work to people with intellectual disabilities, risk of exclusion and vulnerability. The judge is investigating whether part of the money from public contracts ended up covering private expenses linked to the entity, according to the article.
Regarding Rivas, who is listed as an investigated party in the case, the confiscation of his phone has been included in a separate section that remains secret and, therefore, its exact content has not been disclosed. In the same section, however, a whole series of documents that the Mossos also confiscated on January 15 at the Esparreguera Town Hall concerning various contracts for cleaning and public space maintenance services that the council awarded to FIL between 2022 and 2024, when Illa's chief of staff was the mayor, are included.
