By Megan Gorrey
A former Sydney council employee who is an undischarged bankrupt has denied accepting more than $230,000 from a friend in return for helping his company win valuable local government work.
The NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption is investigating whether Benjamin Webb, who managed the works and projects unit at Canterbury Bankstown Council and former council contractor Pietro Cossu, used a company, PMLV Invest and Const Pty Ltd, to supply subcontractors to the council via two recruitment agencies without disclosing a financial interest from 2020 to 2022.
Benjamin Webb.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos
Operation Mantis is also examining allegations that Webb and Cossu, who was contracted as the council’s construction team leader while Webb worked there, favoured a second company, General Works and Construction, owned by Jeremy Clarke when awarding council contracts.
Cossu was listed as PMLV’s director and sole shareholder until mid-2023 when Webb’s father became the company’s director and shareholder.
The inquiry on Thursday heard Cossu had paid Webb hundreds of thousands of dollars while Webb worked at the council. Webb said the money was a payment for a 25 per cent equity share – worth about $350,000 – Cossu had taken in a project management software program his family was developing.
“Mr Cossu had an account he used to deposit cash that we would draw down on. It was a payment from Mr Cossu to my family,” Webb said.
Webb said he hadn’t disclosed the payments to the council as he “was so busy at the time it never entered my mind”.
The inquiry heard Cossu had given Webb a bank card for his account. Webb had withdrawn cash from the account before he deposited the money into his own account under his parents’ names.
The inquiry heard Webb received about $253,000 from Cossu and had spent about $233,000, including at least $10,000 for a family holiday to Port Douglas. Webb told the inquiry he also spent funds from Cossu on personal expenses and food and had transferred money to his wife. He said he spent some of the money on the software venture, including a storage unit for some IT equipment.
Counsel assisting the commission, Georgia Huxley, asked Webb: “Do you accept you spent about $233,000 of Mr Cossu’s money?”
Former Canterbury Bankstown Council contractor Pietro Cossu at the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption on Tuesday.Credit: Dean Sewell
Webb said: “I accept there was that amount of money paid from his stake [in the software program].”
Commissioner Helen Murrell asked Webb whether he had any documents referring to the software program’s existence before early 2023 when he learned of the ICAC investigation.
Webb said he had “some notes and things in my notebooks” that he hadn’t produced to the inquiry.
Under cross-examination from the council’s barrister Arthur Moses, SC, Webb accepted he should have disclosed the payments because he was “in a position to award valuable contracts” to Cossu.
But he denied the transactions and the software scheme were “an attempt to hide the fact that you were receiving payments from Mr Cossu in return for giving him valuable work at the council”.
Moses said: “This is just an attempt by you to come up with a false story to explain the money that was going into your account. This is a fantasy.”
Webb: “Incorrect.”
Moses: “You were the mastermind of the scheme to defraud the council, weren’t you? And Mr Cossu was your stooge?”
Webb: “No.”
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