MONTREAL - Roger Desbois provided more details before the Charbonneau Commission Tuesday about his shady life as a Laval municipal bureaucrat, which began in 2003 after a long career as a priivate engineer
Once in, Desbois helped manage a system of collusion for construction bidders in Laval until 2009.
He alleged that colleague Claude Deguise, the former head of engineering for the city of Laval, would routinely provide him lists of who won which contract and explained what kickback was due from each of the companies.
Desbois would then collect the two percent skim, which was then handled by lawyers from the Dunton-Rainville firm. Those lawyers were arrested along with former Mayor Vaillancourt two weeks ago.
Desbois listed 18 companies which collectively picked-up more than 80 percent of all Laval contracts. His list included Simard-Beaudry and Louisbourg Construction, companies owned until recently by Tony Accurso.
Desbois said that his role expanded from collecting the kickbacks to managing the distribution of contracts among contractors in 2008. He stated that Vaillancourt was fully aware of what went on.
Desbois - who confessed to pocketing $400,000, which he was forced to return to investigators - said that he felt no twangs of conscience in his role because he was simply continuing a long tradition which had long existed in Laval.
