For not making use of its right, the Housing Institute of the City (IVC) used $2,138,045 of public funds to pay private debts.

According to a report by the Auditor General of the City of Buenos Aires (AGCBA, for its acronym in Spanish), IVC did not start "trial by repetition" in the cases in which it was being sued and money was provided for maintenance fees the housing beneficiaries owed. It is that "adverse sentences for payment of maintenance fees and paid (by the Institute) generate right of recourse," says the work and adds, however, the entity itself recognized that during the period under review (2008) not a single trial of this type was not performed.

In parallel, the AGCBA notes that "public officials may incur administrative responsibility patrimonial -or omissions- when their actions violate the rules governing its functions and adversely affects the interests of the state". But in the IVC, the watchdog noted the "shortage of permanent staff (there is only one) that can take responsibility for judicial matters" and, in turn, perform tasks of monitoring and control over the trials that faced.

In fact, on that subject, the auditors verified that the judgments tracking system (sisej) "is outdated, incomplete and has the following errors: Run amounts, number of courts and records, names of cars, states procedural and date of trial. "

To make its analysis, the watchdog had asked the Institute the list of active cases up to December 21, 2008, but the closing date of the report this year, approved the information "was not forwarded, which shows the lack of registration of all trials and monitoring.”

The fact is that according to AGCBA, "lack an internal computer record in the IVC containing information on court cases in which it is part". This observation had already been made in 2007 by the internal audit unit of the Institute.

In their defense, the IVC argued that control over the management of judgments "is forbidden", because that is the responsibility of the Attorney General of the City: "Just an informal follow-up is done," admitted the agency. And according to Article 9 of Law 12,185, "the work on sponsorship and legal representation where the IVC is plaintiff or defendant is the responsibility of the Attorney General" of Buenos Aires.

However, the Buenos Aires Audit responded that this argument "is no impediment to the preventive checks is carried out (because) what is at stake is to ensure the efficiency and effectiveness of management in the public interest". Thus, the report stated that "the demonstrations and actions (IVC) are not sufficient, nor appropriate, or effective or efficient," and recommended managing an "electronic system dynamic link to the Attorney General of the City, as the service must have a legal permanent and full data logging status of the cases.”