According to a report by the Auditor General of the City of Buenos Aires (AGCBA, for its acronym in Spanish), there are three works of "significant importance" for preventing floods, but have been "paralyzed for a considerable time," demonstrating a "significant impairment of efficiency" of the Government of Buenos Aires.

The City watchdog approved a report which analyzed the performance of the Department of Engineering of the Ministry of Urban Development of July of this year. The report highlighted, among several observations, that the City gave advances of up to $ 12 million for a venture that was stopped because of their "deficiency", although the money "has not been reinstated to the contractor," and even called a tender "without funds to go through with it."

Ochoa

For example, in the construction of the drainage basins of the Ochoa, the work was given to the Vialco Company in the amount of $50,395,635.60, and with an expected 22-month due date. It was December 2008. A few days after the adjudication, the company provided an alternative to finish the job in 20 months. In return, the firm requested a financial advancement for the collection of materials for $12,598,908.90, an amount that represented 25% of the contract. In February 2009, the Contract including everything proposed by Vialco was signed.

Despite the speed, from that moment came a "significant number of complex resolution interferences", prompting the firm to extend the commencement of the construction job, scheduled for July 2009. This interference, "greater than those considered in the statement says the audit-" were related to drawings provided by the concessionaires of public services. It’s that these documents showed items that should have been removed before the "approval of the final drainage basins mapping conduit."

Against this background, the parties jointly decided to terminate the contract. The watchdog said that "the failures of the executive project led to the paralyzed constructions jobs, leaving without implementing (a venture) member of the Planning Hydraulic Master Plan." The auditors also added: "The financial payment received by the contractor was not provided in the Bidding Terms and Conditions, and was also not reinstated by the Contractor once the construction ceased.”

Vega y Medrano

Another project analyzed by the AGCBA was scheduled for the flood control basins Vega and Medrano.

On this case, the technicians noted that while the City had called for bids in October 2010, in the proceedings a key step was avoided: "The records, the report said, were not submitted to the Attorney General."

"At that time, the Ministry of Urban Development sent a draft of said signatures/records and noted that the Attorney General issued it as a collaboration` `because` the bidding terms and conditions had not been submitted for analysis 'which will be the work reference" the report explains.

But the research highlights another fact: "At the time of the call for tender, there were not enough funds to address the tender. It was also noted that the bidding documents stipulated that bidders should propose (the Buenos Aires government) a funding mode, though this operation didn’t have the approval of the Legislature of the City. This situation had to be remedied over a year later, through the enactment of the 3226 Act, "which authorized the local executive to get a loan for $123 million.

While conducting the investigation, the Ministry of Finance of the City informed the Audit that "the negotiations (for the loan) are paralyzed by the lack of authorization from the Central Bank of Argentina" for processing guarantees that allow indebtedness. In addition, the watchdog said it can’t give an opinion about it, because they were not provided with a file number through which "they would process the guarantees."

Nevertheless, in May 2009 they landed a Pre-Award Act of the construction job in favor of a transitional unit formed by the construction company Andrade Gutierrez and the aforementioned Vialco Company, "not having issued, at the close of the audit, the administrative act approving the pre-award", ACGBA reports and highlights the "delay in the procedures for viable (entrepreneurship), despite having been called an urgent need for the Government of the City.”

Erezcano

Moreover, there is a project that, even though it has been paralyzed since October 2010, in fact the latest works were recorded in mid-2008. They are the drainage streams of the Erezcano Basin.

In this case, the auditor states that the Contractor conducted a survey of the characteristics of the area where the project would be done and that this study had been accepted by the City. But when preparing the tender documents, they were "significantly different" from the data collected by the company, that caused the construction to "become paralyzed and have neutralization periods, leaving implementation an integral work of the Master hydraulic.”

The watchdog points out that "the differences between the tender documents and the survey conducted by the Contractor are in soil conditions, removal of interference of public services that were not provided, topographical differences, plan metrics, differences in lengths, and originally planned dimensions”.

About this project in particular, the Audit adds that there are "problems regarding the delay in payment of certificates of work and approval of price redeterminations were recognized, which generated successive claims by the Contractor. Currently, which was at the time of the report, they were evaluating whether to rescind the agreement, if the prosecution of the jobs was not feasible. "