ONABE Does Not Know How Many Assets It Has To Administer
An AGN report says that the agency in charge of managing the State's property presents a "dispersion" in its records that prevent it "to have a full knowledge" on the realities that are under its jurisdiction. The entity does not have a unique system to build an inventory or know how to do it, because there are no procedural manuals either. This causes delays in tasks such as the free transfer of land to provinces, municipalities or public good entities.
The National Agency for the Administration of State Assets (ONABE, for its acronym in Spanish) does not know how many assets to manage. This is the main observation of a report of the General Audit of the Nation (AGN, for its acronym in Spanish), on the work of the agency that is under the orbit of the Ministry of Federal Planning.
The role of the ONABE is to dispose of the unrestricted assets not concessioned to the railway system and to the State lands that are declared "unnecessary". The conclusion is justified in a series of irregularities such as the lack of a unique system of registration and management to make an inventory of real estate: "The organism (has) partial tools, disintegrated and dissociated that prevent you from having a data support fit "to make decisions about the management of the assets to be managed. To this "dispersion" the AGN adds that the ONABE did not elaborate a strategic plan nor manuals that detail its functions; This, beyond that does not allow to know if the objectives of the entity are fulfilled, causes that the procedures are done without the support of guides that, in addition, must be approved by "administrative act". In fact, the current working guidelines are "informal, outdated and were prepared by management or coordination," the report completes.
The Audit also noted "some aspects that made it difficult to develop its work," such as the 55 days that ONABE delayed, on average, to provide the requested information and, on the other hand, did not have access to the Documentation detailing the registrations and removals of properties registered since the creation of the agency, or the transfer of land received from the entity that preceded it, the National Property Office. Thus, the AGN failed to "quantify in physical units and monetary values, the universe of goods" of the ONABE, and this "made it impossible to issue an opinion on the reliability" of the audited organ.
However, the annexes to the report include an analysis of the database provided by ONABE. There are 4,457 non-rail properties and 11,037 railway goods distributed in 25 excel sheets, but more than 30% of the information needed to process them is missing.
These irregularities affect ONABE's compliance with Law 24,146. The regulations allow free transfer of assets considered unnecessary to provincial, municipal and public good entities to fulfill their management purposes. Real estate should be allocated to urban development programs, infrastructure services, parks, sanitary or school units, and the construction of housing for low-income families. The AGN took a sample of 117 files on the more than 10 thousand that are subject to this operation, and concluded that the agency does not have the necessary speed to transfer the land, in fact, delays of more than one year were detected, from the last process carried out, in 34 files of the sample: "The situation only immobilizes a large number of properties that, because they are affected by the law, cannot be involved in other types of operations," explains the Audit. On the other hand, the ONABE does not control that the goods are used for the destinations that justified the transfers. The AGN discovered that only three buildings of its sample were inspected, to which must be added a case that was motivated by a "neighbor complaints."