The Salta Watchdog Abstained From Commenting On the Financial Statements of the Municipality Of La Viña
<p style="text-align:justify">It was because the necessary documentation was not given and the omissions could not be saved. In the 2012 budget there were deviations of more than 100% without rules that authorize any modification. In many contracts, there was no evidence of established procedures or supporting documents to support payments.</p>
The General Audit of the Province of Salta "abstained from comment" on the budget execution and the debt statements of the Municipality of La Viña for 2011, among other reasons because "it did not provide all the documentation and the omissions could not be Saved through alternative audit procedures."
The objective of the audit was to evaluate the financial and legality statements and to see the reasonableness of budget execution and debt status data. Regarding the budget, the control body of Salta "refrains from giving its opinion because it has not been able to ascertain the reasonableness, integrity and sufficiency of the figures mentioned."
As for the legality "there were verified violations of the current regulations", fundamentally to the Organic Law of Municipalities and the Law of Accounting.
The 2012 budget was approved through an ordinance on May 20 of the following year "authorizing a spending level of nearly $ 7.7 million" which was executed as follows:
As can be seen, there are significant deviations that in some cases exceed 100%. In view of this situation, the Audit said that "the Municipality did not sanction norms that authorize the corresponding budgetary modifications."
Another of the highlights of the report is that, for example, La Viña "does not have a comprehensive accounting system that includes all subsystems, budgetary, financial, equity and management."
There are payment orders, for almost $2 million, "liquidated and paid on which no corresponding withholding tax" was carried out on economic activities or profits.
Inside the orders it was detected that "the entity does not issue them in chronological form, there are payment orders that lack the joint signature of the Secretary, paying agent and beneficiary." There were also cases where "amounts above $1000 were paid, in breach of current legislation."
In relation to the files of contracting carried out by the municipality, the audit team detected that "there is no selection of contracting procedure, nor the instruments of approval, or the vouchers that support the payments made."
In particular, for the provision of Industrial Waste Treatment Plant-Municipal Slaughterhouse "only documentary evidence of a payment of $ 14 thousand pesos corresponding to the contractual termination was found." The records of other payments made were not found, says the report approved in December 2015.