Montreal engineer details 20 years of bribes

A retired senior City of Montreal engineer says collusion became rampant on local sewer contracts about a decade ago and that he was pocketing kickbacks galore.

Gilles Surprenant was back on the stand for a third day at Quebec's corruption inquiry, where he went over details of 91 city contracts in which he was involved.

Surprenant, who was the city official in charge of planning and budgeting for public works projects,testified he received kickbacks from construction bosses ranging from $3,000 to $10,000 per contract. In one bigger deal, he pocketed about $20,000.

Hetold the Charbonneau commissionhe walked away with between $50,000 and $60,000 in 2000 alone.

The amounts he receivedon eachproject weren't fixed, Surprenant said. Some construction bosses were more generous and would occasionally give close to one per cent of the value of a contract, whilesometimes it was far less.The average bribe, he said, was around 0.5 per cent.

He also received numerous tropical holidays, expensive meals and concert and hockey tickets.

Surprenantsaid collusion was rampant among the companies bidding on City of Montreal tenders, and it was happening on contracts big and small.

Hesaid he artificially increased the price of contracts determined by a computer program to meet the requests of construction companies working inthe cartel.

According to Surprenant, theconstruction bosseshe dealt with were:

• Joe Borsellinoof Garnier Construction.
• Lino Zambitoof Infrabec Construction.
• Now-deceased Tony Conte ofConex Construction.
• Paolo Cataniaof Frank Catania & Associates.
• Antonio Cataniaand Paolo Catania ofCatcan Enterprises.
• Domenico Arcurior Dominic Cammalleriof Mirabeau Construction.
• Antonio Bentivegna of Bentech Construction.
• Francesco Capelloof SuperExcavations.
• Domenico Aloisio of ATAConstruction.
• Joey Piazzaof TGA Montral.

Surprenant repeatedTuesday that his bosses always signed off on his work.