The Entity That Controls the Safety of Dams Cannot Measure the Likelihood of Accidents
<p style="line-height: 20.8px;">This is the ORSEP, the entity that has to oversee 31 national enterprises. According to a report from the AGN, the body does not know the tolerable conditions of risk and do not have a specific regulatory framework on its function. On the other hand, there are irregularities such as lack of signatures, stamps, and record dates for technical procedures, which invalidates the administrative acts and prevents sanctions to the dealerships. Its internal control unit is "weak".</p>
The Entity for the Safety of Dams (ORSEP, for its acronym in Spanish), has not developed a specific regulatory framework on their responsibilities, they have not compiled, a guide, national and international regulations concerning the matter, nor upgraded monitoring procedures included in the concession contract ventures. According to a report from the General Audit Office (AGN, for its acronym in Spanish), these shortcomings are accompanied by the impossibility of knowing "the conditions of tolerable risk" or what the parameters are for evaluating the observations arising from dams. This is to say, if the ORSEP were to detect any irregularity in a dam, it would have no way of knowing how prone it is to an accident.
In Argentina there are a total of 103 dams of which 70 are of provincial administration, two binational, built with Paraguay Yacyretá and Salto Grande, along with Uruguay, and 31 are national, concessions and are under the aegis of the ORSEP. They are distributed in 17 provinces with the main cities downstream of dams. The AGN explains that if there was an error in the control of stored water, either by a fault in construction or in the technical operation, these populations would be in "danger".
The ORSEP was created in 1999 and replaced the regional body of Comahue. Among its responsibilities, they must ensure proper oversight of the safety of dams, reservoirs, and complementary works, and monitor compliance with the obligations contained in the concession contracts. It is under the purview of the Ministry of Public Works of the Ministry of Federal Planning.
In its inspections, the ORSEP does not meet certain formal requirements "difficult to track its main function," says the AGN and points out that "missing signatures, stamps, and record dates lack technical procedures." But these "formal flaws invalidate the administrative act" continues the Audit, i.e., intentionally or by negligence, the possibility of imposing sanctions that could correspond to any irregularities in the concession and are not sufficient to initiate inquiries.
The dams granted must pay a fee to the State that is shared between the ORSEP and the provinces. After the 2002 devaluation, Hydroelectric Futaleufú S.A., began to settle in pesos a monthly contribution of $100,000 and because ORSEP never updated the amount, the participation of the canon of company revenue agency lowered from 32% to 17%. In addition, the ORSEP did not inform the AGN on the circuit charging the fee, because it does not have its own penalties for failure to pay or to calculate interest on the contributions that dams made out of term.
The limitations of the ORSEP in their work indoors correlate with the body. "The system of internal control is weak," says the AGN, and bases its assertion that, even though the magnitude of the activity of the entity and geographical distribution of operations, "the internal audit unit is constituted only by one auditor." Moreover, senior positions are covered "temporarily, without respecting the formalities of the call for proposals required by
