The Agency That Must Clean Up the Riachuelo Does Not Have a System of Access to Its Management Information
<p style="text-align:justify">It is about ACUMAR which according to the AGN has not yet enabled a mechanism to publicize its work despite receiving a loan from the World Bank intended precisely for that. Data on the improvement in the quality of life for residents of the basin was expected. It is known that it did not execute the plan of health emergencies or patient care rooms.</p>
Although the Authority Matanza-Riachuelo Basin (ACUMAR) received a loan from the World Bank to improve its internal organization, incorporating staff and create an office of access to information, "it not yet consolidated its institutionalization, did not differentiate between functions" nor it systematized data arising from their work. So says a report from the General Audit Office (AGN, for its acronym in Spanish) regarding the deficiencies identified in the components that make up the Integral Sanitation Plan (PISA).
The report, approved this year on data from November 2006 to May 2009, says that "there is no information system that allows systematic or complete organize access to documentation management" of ACUMAR.
In addition, although judgment of the Supreme Court, the Basin Authority should carry out digital public information with data on progress in "improving the quality of life of the inhabitants of the basin, recompose the environment and preventing damage", called the SICUENCA system, it has “not yet implemented" the software.
Budget Allocations
The AGN argues that the agency "has no assigned budget items of their own" and to operate "depends on the resources of the Presidency -through the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development SAyDS- and contributions from other jurisdictions". According to the watchdog, "in practice, ACUMAR is an appendix to the Department of Environment".
Therefore, details the Audit, arrangements with the municipalities involved in the basin to provide financial support through agreements ranging between $ 200,000 and $ 800,000 were signed, but the agency "did not inform nor stated what funds are which it allocated each jurisdiction in 2007 and 2008, "or what" go in 2009 and 2010 ". To this is added that the environmental compensation fund, created by law to be administered by ACUMAR," not yet established".
Contamination
The Ministry of Environment relieved a total of "4103 companies affecting the basin" and also told "50 industries as responsible for 95% of the organic pollution," pollutant discharging liquid to Riachuelo. However, as for the environmental control component, the report says that human resources or materials are not used "in the right amount" to control pollution. In turn, adds that the ACUMAR "not yet determined pollutants from sources of industrial pollution".
Meanwhile, in relation to the Integrated Management of Municipal Solid Waste (GRISU, for its acronym in Spanish), the report said that "the identification and characterization of waste dumps and contaminated sites in the basin is not completed" nor is a "comprehensive plan remediation of contaminated sites."
Health of Nearby Residents to the Basin
Finally, the Audit Office explained that, regarding the health component whose objective is to minimize the risks to people exposed to biological contaminants and chemical Stream, "was not incorporated into the primary care centers a person skilled in content management and environmental health, a network of health facilities involved are not articulated, no protocols were developed accessibility and coverage ", nor the number of environmental health Units increased, or the health Emergency Plan was implemented."