A report of the Audit of the City of Buenos Aires (AGCBA, for its acronym in Spanish) indicates that the Buenos Aires Notary did not publish on the internet the affidavits of officials of the Ministry of Finance for 2008, although, according to a decree in power for six years, the statements should have been released before March 2009.

That rule also provides that documents must be distributed through the Official Gazette of the City and before the deadline mentioned above. The watchdog says that the Clerk did publish sworn finance statements, but with a "significant delay,” on July 22 of last year.

The decree in question, the 1381/04, appointed the Notary of Buenos Aires as the one to "hold the financial disclosure for a period of ten years from the date of the Official’s departure." The auditors visited the site intended for filing and detected that the deposit "does not have the proper security measures and not enough room for the conservation" of these papers for the expected time.

Ministry of Finance

For its report, the AGCBA analyzed 115 of the 359 employees of the Ministry of Finance that are required to declare their assets. From that sample, they were "unable to determine" the role 49 members played because "the list provided by Human Resources (of the City Government) is incomplete." The report states that regarding the cases provided, "the job positions are not specified, preventing a time to be set as well as the how to fulfill the obligation of the presentation."

With this background, the watchdog reviewed the cases of 66 officers and found that "13 of them did not formalize the submitting of their affidavits."

The Human Resources Unit of the Treasury also received the endorsement of the auditors. The data provided by this area was "incomplete" because not every member was informed of the requirement to declare their assets by decree 1381-1304. But the list was also not submitted to the General Notary, which prevented those who do not comply with current regulations to be warned. There's more: "Staff offices (portfolio) do not properly concoct forms containing the affidavits, using in some cases outdated documents," says the audit.

Déjà Vu

According to the City Charter, all officers of government, autarchic and decentralized entities, from the Chief and Deputy Chief of Government to Heads of Department, to Ministers, Secretaries, Secretaries, Directors and Assistant Directors, a statement is required of sworn goods within 15 working days from assuming office and after leaving the service, before December 31 of each year, and every circumstance in which there is a substantial change in their heritage.

From 2000 to the present, the City Watchdog made 16 affidavits studies in different areas of city government. After analyzing the case of the Ministry of Finance, the watchdog decided to put its work "to the attention of the Head of Government and Mr. Chief of Staff, to take appropriate action under the repeated reports with identical results.”