The penalty is not symbolic. Tuesday, May 3, Saïd Andhanouni, the mayor of Chirongui, a town of nearly 9,000 inhabitants located in the south of the Mayotte archipelago, was sentenced by the Mamoudzou judicial court to a fine of 15,000 euros, ten years in prison. ineligibility with provisional execution – that is to say that he immediately left his mandate -, five years of prohibition to exercise any public office and eighteen months of suspended prison sentence for embezzlement of public funds, taken unlawful interests and favouritism. A sentence that wants to be “dissuasive and educational”according to the prosecutor of Mayotte, Yann Le Bris, joined by The world.
Elected in June 2020 under the label Les Républicains (LR) – he has since sponsored and supported Emmanuel Macron for the presidential election – Mr. Andhanouni has, it seems, quickly assimilated the advantages he could derive from his function. At the risk of freeing oneself from the rules applying to local authorities and their elected officials, as reported by The Journal of Mayotte et Mayotte Weeklywho followed the hearings.
“I didn’t know the rules”
His daughter, who has no other experience than that of a saleswoman, without a diploma or knowledge of communities, has a position as an executive assistant for six months. “It was my assistant director of services who told me that we could do this”, he defends himself. He hires one of his friends, aged 67, as a “bodyguard” and the wife of one of his supporters as a “registrar”. This one, unfortunately, can neither read nor write. “I didn’t know the rules”he recognizes at the bar.
Shortly after his election, he took part, with a delegation of six people, in the national meetings of the Association of territorial managers of social action, generally reserved for territorial managers working in this field, which were held from September 30 to October 2. 2020 in Issoudun (Indre). All this at the expense of the municipality, which finances the trip up to 13,000 euros.
However, according to the attendance sheets of the congress and the geolocation of the telephones carried out during the course of the investigation, they will only attend one morning, for a stay which will last twelve days in mainland France. During this time, the mayor and his crew left an unpaid note of 3,000 euros in a hotel in Châteauroux, in addition to the expenses provided by the municipality.
Then, between December 2020 and January 2021, during the school holidays, always at the expense of the municipality, he goes, accompanied by his chief of staff, his director general of services (DGS) and his “bodyguard” , in Madagascar, for a stay of two and a half weeks intended for ” cultural exchanges “, stay which passes by Majunga, port and tourist city in the North-West of the “red island”, and Nosy Be, famous coastal island reconverted in tourism. Traces of these interviews “cultural”there are none left.
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