The Tourism Ministry Does Not Have a Purchase Plan
This is the conclusion of an AGN report on the operations carried out by the unit during the year 2005. Among other "shortcomings" were the use of "direct procurement without due justification", the lack of justification of the prices awarded, and the omission of controls on the obligations of dealers.
From an analysis of the "relevant contracts" made by the Ministry of Tourism during 2005, the General Audit Office (AGN, for its acronym in Spanish) concluded that the agency "does not have a purchasing plan" to order the execution of its budget. Thus, the Federal Watchdog detected "deficiencies" as "direct contracting" that did not have "due justification," lack of substantiation of the prices awarded and the "omission of procedures to verify the obligations" that had the concessionaires on the units Tourist attractions. That is to say, it was not controlled whether the companies respected the established in the contracts, for example as far as investment plans, and, consequently, did not sanction the non-compliances that could have generated an economic damage to the public treasury.
To prepare the report, which was approved in November 2008, the AGN examined 37 tourism purchase orders for $ 90,444,682, which accounted for 90% of the money awarded for contracts and purchases in 2005.
In this sample there are several operations outside the bidding modality in which there is no justification for the convenience of the prices that were awarded. This is the case of direct contracting 128 and 129/05, for $ 388,427 and $ 400,752 respectively, in which services were purchased for "communication strategy", and 233/05 in which a "television service" For $ 520,830.
When a government agency performs a direct contracting, it must argue, among other things, the "exclusivity" of a service provider in order not to initiate a bidding process. However, "no substantiation of alleged exclusivity was found" in file 124/05, whereby the Ministry of Tourism convened a "country brand specialist" with two purchase orders of $ 1,700,000 and $ 250,000.
In 2004, a year before the period analyzed by the AGN, a public tender was called for the operation of hotels, bars and dining rooms of the Chapadmalal Tourism Unit for a period of four years. The companies awarded were Resaka SRL, Catering Argentina SA and Alta Tecnología Alimentaria SA for amounts of slightly over $ 15 million. The inspection body found that, in those operations, there was no "compliance with the additional guarantee" that the firms had to file on the assets affected by the concession for damages, "as provided for in Article 9 of the Base Tender and Particular conditions".
However, in March 2007, the Audit reviewed the Tourist Unit and verified a number of breaches in the works that were stipulated in the contracts.
For example, Resaka SRL did not build five bathrooms, "a ramp for the disabled" or repaired 50% of the postigotes of one of the hotels that exploded. All these works had to be done during the first year of concession.
In the case of Catering SA, two restrooms and ramps for persons with reduced mobility in one of their hotels were not retrofitted and in another of the complexes, partial repair of the deck was not done either. The works also had to be carried out in the first year of contract.
One of the hotels of Alta Tecnología Alimentaria SA did not recondition two bathrooms for the disabled nor was there an elevator installed, and the laundry and pharmacy that were foreseen, were not enabled.
In all these cases, the AGN could not verify that the Ministry of Tourism has "applied corrective or sanctioning measures in the event of non-compliance."
The Watchdog also discovered irregularities in the concession of the Tourist Unit of Embalse, in Córdoba, without Tourism sanctioning the nonobservance of the expected deadlines for works that, according to the contracts, were obligatory.
The company Servicios de Alimentos SA had eight months, counting from June of 2005, to enable the pool of one of the hotels that exploited, but it did not. Nor did it meet the schedule of works for the first year of contract in another of the hotels, which included the remodeling of three bathrooms for $ 19,300, neither the installation of a lift and a ramp for the disabled for $ 60 thousand, nor the repair of 60% of the postigotes for $ 9,330.
Finally, the firm General de Abastecimento SA - Salvador Bautista Pérez and other SA did not fulfill the schedule of works for its first year of operation in two hotels, nor did it put into operation the premises of inn and laundry provided in the Specifications and Conditions Individuals.