Through four rulings handed down between October 2007 and December 2008, the Mendoza Court of Accounts fined 15 officials of the province for the "very serious irregularities" detected in the administration of the Vale Más System, Food to people at risk of subsistence.

The judgments in question correspond to the surrender of subsidies granted during the period 2003-2006. The Vale Mas system consisted in the distribution of tickets with a nominal value of money in which the data of the beneficiaries appeared and that they were used to buy food, previously programmed, in merchants adherents. The vouchers were issued by the company Proms S.A., which distributed them by mail. When someone paid with a Vale Plus, the paper entered a circuit that ended in Proms, which ultimately had to prove to the administration of the program that it had effectively fulfilled the delivery of the ticket.

The officials questioned, meanwhile, managed the Fund for Investment and Development (FIDES), which was under the aegis of the then Undersecretariat of Social Development (current Undersecretary of Social Integration).

In Judgment 14.989 / 07 on Accountability for 2003, the Mendoza Court found that FIDES members did not control whether returned ticket checks matched "with the unsigned boxes in the beneficiaries' booklet."

In addition, "there was an outstanding balance of subsidies for $ 118,030," which constituted an "unjustified delivery" by the provincial State. The control body also calculated the interest generated by that amount without yielding and reached a total of $ 171,153.20. That was the fine "joint and several" for those responsible for FIDES: Executive Directors Gerardo De Marco and Luis Carretero; The internal auditor, Carlos Marziali; Emma Cunietti and Liliana Mirabile of the Undersecretariat of Social Development; and the directors of Cooperation Martín Luconi and Maria Gotusso.

From the 2004 Accountability (ruling 14.854 / 07), it emerged that payment orders were issued for Proms "without due support". It is that the Tribunal could not accede to the booklets where - in theory - they had to appear the signatures of the beneficiaries who received the tickets. For this "omission to enforce" the company's obligation to demonstrate the delivery of checkbooks, the control body applied a fine of $ 600 for Mirabile, Carretero, Marziali, and Luconi, and added on the payroll to the head of the area Accountant, Marta Rosas; And the head of the Vale Más Program, Luis Llobel.

Likewise, it was detected that the surrender of the subsidy of Vale Más corresponding to the second half of 2004 was lacking, by $ 7,646,159.21.

According to the Court (ruling 15,155 / 08), in 2005 FIDES registered "internal control deficiencies", failing to check the tickets presented as documentary support of the invoices of wholesale businesses. The control agency itself had to "physically verify" a sample of tickets, and found that there were wholesalers who presented vouchers that lacked retail accreditation and that on the back of those papers - where retailer data were to appear - , Two times the identification of the wholesaler. The ruling states that "those responsible for making the settlements should not have paid the bills without being sure that the tickets have complied with the circuit" established by regulation.

And again there were fines. This time they were $ 2 thousand for Gotusso, Mirabille, Caviglia and the administrator Paula Eisenchlas; Of $ 3 thousand for Carter; And $ 5 thousand for Luconi and Llobel.

It was also verified the lack of documentation (booklet of delivery of vouchers with data of the beneficiaries) that supports a settlement of the subsidy for $ 2,230,762, and a surrender for $ 2,765,418.

For its part, in the rendering of accounts of 2006 (ruling 15.206 / 08), it was discovered that the delivery circuit of the Vale Mas "was not fulfilled on several occasions." Although the company Proms had to send the checkbooks by mail against the presentation of documents by the recipients, the program leader, Alberto Monetti, signed notes authorizing third parties (individuals, health workers, staff of the area of Action Social of the Municipalities), to withdraw tickets from beneficiaries during the January-October period of that year.

In his dismissal, the Mendoza official said that "there was a generalized and widespread mechanism throughout the province where social and political referrals distributed tickets directly." The Court, in turn, clarified that "the irregular procedure could (provoke) that the vouchers did not reach the beneficiaries as a result of the lack of a control system."

In 2006, it was also learned that there were beneficiaries who had more than one benefit or were included in more than one municipality and, in some cases, their real domicile was unknown, and the documents were not included in the electoral roll. In this respect, the inspection body noted that "files" were deleted from the Government server, "since the documentation provided only allowed the identification of the accounts used for sending and receiving voucher orders, but not for attachments."

From these "very serious irregularities", the ruling determined fines of $ 5 thousand for Carter and Monetti; Of $ 3 thousand for the administrator Fanny Salomón; $ 2 thousand for Marziali, Caviglia and for the Minister of Social Development, Sergio Pinto; And $ 500 to Chief of Staff Alejandro Sanchez.

On the margin, it revealed the lack of booklets that support two deliveries of money, for $ 412,600 and $ 729 thousand, and surrender of magnetic cards for $ 2,942,630. And there was "duplication of beneficiaries in booklets of delivery of vouchers," said the Mendoza Court.

The provincial supervisory authority concluded that "although those responsible (from FIDES) claim to have terminated the contract with Proms, there were no pecuniary sanctions against the company", and all the invoices presented were paid "including those with irregularities and without backing Documentary," according to the budgetary allocations of the years 2006 and 2007.