A report by the General Auditor of the City of Buenos Aires (AGCBA) revealed that in 2011 the Department of School Infrastructure not only invested less capital than was expected, but the tasks they did perform were done in a very "poor" manner. Ironically, this is precisely the area that must plan, develop, and monitor construction sites in local schools. This report was published recently be the audit.

The auditors verified that for the "construction" category, there was a sub-execution of 27.51% of the money available for 2011, an amount equal to more than $153 million pesos. Therefore, from an approved credit of $558 million pesos, the Department only executed $404 million, three quarters of the total amount.

Regarding the tasks in which capital was invested, according to AGCBA "inadequate planning was detected in 23% of them." The audit team visited various schools and found that in one of them, located at 954 Castro, "the installation for a new heating system was being set up in winter” In another school, two companies were doing the same work.

The watchdog also noted that "59% of the projects were carried out with "deficiencies and lacking previous surveys."An example cited in the report that was issued in late 2012, is the National School of Dance, located in Esmeralda 285, where "the plan does not respond to the first objective, which was to improve the lighting and ventilation of the classrooms as well as the preservation of that historic building." The project of the Higher Normal School No. 3, located in Bolivar 1235, "was supposed to have an emergency exit through a vacant lot next to the school, however that lot was not owned by the city”.

The report also exposes the case of the "Walt Disney" Kindergarten, located in 1555 Caseros. After the site visit, the auditors concluded that the project "did not comply at all with the Ease of Access Law, because during the planning there was no consideration of ramps or an alternative lifts.” However, at the time the audit was carried out they were planning on fixing these mistakes. Nevertheless, this was not the only flaw found in this school. Soon after the construction had ended, they had to rehire workers to fix or add things that had not been done the first time around. 

The watchdog classified the execution of the 65% of tasks performed by the Department as "poor". On this point, the AGCBA cited several cases of very "slow paced work". Like for example the Music School ‘Juan Pedro Esnaola’, the Auditorium DE 15, and the National Dance School DE 1. After the visit at the Dance School, auditors warned that there was a "violation in the safety standards, putting in danger the lives of the students as well as the teachers". Nevertheless, "there was fine or penalties imposed by the Authority".


What’s the role of the Office of School Infrastructure?

Despite their goal, one of the observations made by the AGCBA was that "there is no single centralized registration information system to determine the overall work carried out in 2011". Therefore, there isn’t a detailed record that documents the constructions. This lacks to such an extent that the watchdog “couldn’t tell where the works that had been carried out where located”.

The auditors did find some contracts for the hiring of the construction companies, but found that in "17% of cases, the technical report justifying the need to carry out the work was missing" while "in 67% of cases, they couldn’t find minute documents that stated the reason for beginning the work in the first place, also, there were no documents that justified time extensions”.