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The Comptroller General of the Republic will initiate an objection with which it seeks to restore $ 588.6 million for the municipal coffers of Maipú, after discovering numerous irregular payments in the administration of Mayor Cathy Barriga.
The anomalies appear in a 158-page report from the control body, in which it realizes the hiring of consultancies without endorsements and purchases of items without sufficient accreditation, ranging from umbrellas to aluminum bottles.
But there is more. A trip by the mayor and her municipal staff to Pucón is also questioned. They crossed 785 kilometers, from the capital to the tourist area of La Araucanía, for a training at … the Gran Hotel Enjoy.
The Comptroller’s Office took action on the matter and announced that it will initiate a trial of accounts, with which it intends to recover the monies disbursed by the State in the acquisitions of the mayor.
Direct deals
As stated in the report dated March 9, the Comptroller discovered that the building house entered into contracts via direct dealings with four web pages for several million pesos, to prepare and disseminate news of events and services of the municipality.
However … it was discovered not everything was in order.
On the contrary, it was detected that three of the four contracted web pages literally copied and pasted the news disseminated by the communal management, something that – in the opinion of the Comptroller’s Office – corresponds to services that cannot be considered “necessary” and ” essential ”, since the municipality has its own press office.
In all the providers, problems were also detected in accrediting the services. The first one, only presented as evidence “a couple of examples with screen prints.”
Of the second service provider, the dates of the publications contained in the reports and verifications carried out on said website do not appear. allowed the Comptroller to verify the publication of only one piece of news, dated January 20, 2020. There were no other notes published that year, states the document of the supervisory body.
The third party, meanwhile, identified in a generic way and without details of date and title the publications made, “a fact that does not allow verifying the services reported with those featured on the website,” the letter states.
While the fourth, “made a review to said portal
website on February 8, 2021, it was not possible to confirm the publications made in 2020, because these were not taken “, sentences the agency.
For these services, the building house paid almost 27 million pesos, which meant a “slap on the wrist” to Barriga’s administration from the Comptroller’s Office, from where it was reminded that “disbursements made with public funds must be made (…) With due protection of public assets, and in full respect of the principle of administrative probity, and that in addition, they do not affect the principles of efficiency, effectiveness and economy ”.
Barriga’s advisers
The story does not end there. As it was found, the Municipality of Maipú hired five advisers: two of them reporting directly to the mayor’s office, another two for the Smapa municipal water distribution program, and another official for fees.
In total, all of them were paid more than 13 million pesos, but the performance of their tasks could not be accredited.
The reason? Simple. When the officials of the Comptroller’s Office came to supervise the provision of services on the ground, the units in charge of endorsing the activity reports that supported the payments did not present evidence to prove the tasks contained in the monthly reports.
During the investigation, the supervisory body required a formal response from the municipal administration, but it did not rule on the matter.
Training in… Pucón?
The municipality also did not skimp on purchases and training. The Gran Hotel Enjoy de Pucón was the destination chosen to train 100 officials who had served between 5 and 50 years of service.
The activity took place on May 29, 30 and 31, 2019, costing the municipal coffers almost $ 48 million pesos.
As described by the comptroller body, the event did not have the minimum supporting documentation to support the expenditure made, such as the content, program and evaluation of the training, as well as background information that supports that the personnel who participated in it met the requirements.
As if that were not enough, it was also revealed that of the 100 people considered for the activity, only a record of the participation of 87 of them was kept. Nothing indicates about the 13 people who did not attend the event and who were included in the cost of the activity anyway.
Executive model umbrella
According to the lapidary report of the control body, for the considerable sum of just over $ 137 million, acquisitions of advertising gifts were made that they would not be linked to activities related to the municipality’s own purposes.
The breakdown goes like this: ecological bags, caramayolas, backpacks, fleece covers, aluminum sports bottles, executive model umbrellas, among others. All of them would have been delivered in different events held by the municipality in the 2019-2020 period.
The payment of $ 109 million pesos for transportation services for people was also verified, which – again – did not have the pertinent documentation to support the payment decree.
Indeed, the municipality – as a test – presented a compact disc with information, but this could not be verified by the Comptroller’s Office: “It was blank,” indicates the report regarding the CD.
Finally, it was also found, among other things, that the purchases made by the municipality in relation to covid-19, such as masks, antivirus portals, thermometers, vitamin C, clinical beds, rapid tests and merchandise, were insufficiently accredited.
For example, in the case of vitamin C, the report is clear in stating that “once the information made available for such acquisitions had been analyzed, it was verified that there is no evidence that the goods obtained have been entered into the municipal warehouse and nor the existence of minutes where the distribution of the acquired species is formalized ”.
Something similar happens with the purchase of 80 electric clinical beds with three AP functions and an IC foam mattress, where, according to the Comptroller’s Office, the entry of these into the municipal inventory and the final destination of such species does not appear.
For all the above, the Comptroller’s Office indicated that it would initiate the respective repair, in order to restore the payments that amount to a total of $ 588.6 million.
The BioBioChile Reporting Unit tried to obtain a response from the municipality, but until the closing of this edition, no response was obtained.
Read the full report here:
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