The Deprogrammed Productive Recovery Program and the Ministry Of Labor
<p><span style="line-height: 1.6em;">According to the General Auditor's Office (AGN, for its acronym in Spanish), the results and the costs for the federal plan that assists workers and businesses through monthly grants could not be evaluated because among other issues "they have not defined goals or objectives, and does not have specific distributions of the funds and human resources."</span></p> <div> </div>
Set up in July 2002, under the aegis of the Ministry of Labor (MTEySS, for its acronym in Spanish) the Productive Recovery Program, also known as REPRO, helped workers in affiliated companies "through financial aid to alleviate the negative effects in their employment and indirectly to help support the productive sector, which at the time “was in distress." On monthly bases the beneficiaries access to "a fixed sum of up to $ 600 pesos", which they receive through the banking network ANSES. The grant "is given only once and for a maximum period of 6 months."
In its report published in December 2011 on data from 2009 to the first quarter of 2010, the Federal Watchdog indicated that it could not assess the program’s compliance because of the multiple irregularities and informalities recorded around the REPRO.
From a budgetary point of view, "the program does not have a specific allocation or funds, or human resources, or defined goals and strategic objectives", in fact, the project "was included in the 2009 budget under the name 'social aid to people.' "
Throughout the fieldwork, which lasted from June to November 2010, the auditors "found no Administrative Acts that approve and therefore provide benefits since 2009." However, they found payments, which were settled after the disbursement of benefits, "which made no mention of the approval of the grant." This means that contributions were paid without prior approval of the benefit.
The watchdog's report said that the program "did not meet the requirement of the respective subscription agreements of accession". Nor could they verify the existence of technical reports to be submitted by the National Office of Federal Relations (DNRF, for its acronym in Spanish) reflecting the views of the area responsible for controlling the requirements to be met by the companies. To this we add that there were files that didn’t have the Socio-Economic Labor report that has to be submitted by the companies and the documents within the records were "not signed or dated."
In addition, the AGN "could not verify the existence of studies on labor economic situations at a national and regional level that provide quantitative data on companies that could be potential beneficiaries, so to support the budget."
The report notes that "for 2009 the total scheduled benefits were 643,400 and 886,470 were actually executed." As was reported by the audit, "the cause of the increase is due to external factors (workers affected by the international crisis)."