According to a report from the General Audit Office of the City of Buenos Aires (AGCBA, for its acronym in Spanish), the Colon Theater incurred in "breaches" and "significant deviations" when it came to specifying its purchases and hiring in 2013, mainly due to the "complete inadmissibility" in the use of exceptional mechanisms to approve expenses, which led the Watchdog to conclude that the cultural entity "has expressly departed from the regime that regulates the acquisition of goods and services."

The Area Analyzed

Within the Buenos Aires Ministry of Culture, a decree passed in 2008 created the so-called Autonomous Entity Colon Theater (EATC, for its acronym in Spanish), which has the functional and financial autonomy to carry out the operations required by one of the most important artistic spaces in the world.

The Audit focused its analysis on the work of the EATC, which during fiscal year 2013 acquired goods and services through Law 2095, of procurement and contracting of the City, for $20.6 million; Decree 556/10, which is an exceptional legal regime to cover unpayable disbursements, for $53.2 million; the Petty Cash, for $ 240 thousand; the Special Petty Cash, for $26.6 million; and the contracting of lease of services and works, for $4.6 million.

The Observations

Regarding the operations that the EATC made through the City's Purchasing and Contracting Law, the auditors observed records that do not include the guarantee of adjudication and that do not include the registration certificates of the contractor against the AFIP and AGIP, which they must accompany with the offer.

In regard to the direct contracting of the Colon, the report says that it found files without purchase or payment orders. In addition, there were folders that did not have the certificates that demonstrated that the contractors were part of the Computerized, Sole and Permanent Suppliers Registry (RIUPP) and that they were not food debtors.

On the side of minor purchases, the audit highlights the case of the process for the "acquisition of 'various items of shoe store', which detected a variation between the official budget and the effectively allocated in the order of + 550.65%, with an average deviation of 329.31% in prices per line awarded." On this, the full report states that "the differences observed do not find a proper justification in the documentation contained in the file" analyzed.

The Decree

In 2008, the Buenos Aires Auditor approved a report in which it was stated that, because it did not have a purchasing plan, the Colon Theater had spent more than $900 thousand through the excessive use of a decree in force since 2001 that allowed disbursements from outside of the contract law.

This latest investigation also devotes a section to a similar decree: it is the 556/2010, with which the cultural entity "incurred a departure from the procedures provided for in the procurement and contracting regime," says the AGCBA and adds: "Additionally, it is evident that the deviation, with respect to the application of the governing procedures, is significant (because) the application of the decree represents 54.27%, of the total of examined administrations."

What does this mean? That out of every 100 pesos executed by the Theater in purchases and contracts, almost 55 were disbursed from a tool designed only for exceptional cases.

Two operations called the attention of the auditors on this issue. The first has to do with the approval of an expenditure of almost $300 thousand for spare parts in bathrooms, and the second, with the purchase of a "good use" for just over $100 thousand. It is that, in spite of their respective magnitudes, both transactions were made outside of a Multiyear Investment Plan.

And in addition, the technicians list some treasures: even though the Autonomous Entity itself signed the reception in conformity, that good of use "is not in existence within the heritage of the Theater"; in the file of the spare parts "there is no approval of specifications and general stipulations"; "The offers presented do not comply with the requirements of the specifications, nor do they comply with the guarantees provided for a bidding process"; and in fact "the Opening Act does not correspond to the work in question", says the Audit, and specifies that this document is from another tender that, according to the papers of Colon, is for "Conford [sic] Improvement Works confectionery of the Passage of the Carriages," that is processed in a different file.

Finally, the City Watchdog found three files on the same work, and concluded: "The Autonomous Entity of the Colón Theater has incurred in unpacking the expense by processing by separate threads the operations corresponding to the 'Launching of the Cloud’ workshops, since they are related works, simultaneous and whose purpose is complementary, which indicates that the three operations should have been processed under the same process of Public Works."

And here too there were pearls: "In the three files, the Works Certificates No. 1 was submitted two days before the date of signing the contract. This finding gives rise to consider that the works in question began before the subscription of the same. In this line, the absence of Works Start-up Acts is noticed in all cases."