They Send $ 20 Million to Municipalities in a Loose, Vague and Difficult Agreement to Interpret
<p style="text-align:justify">According to the AGN, the Matanza Riachuelo Watershed Authority transferred the money to the communes affected by the watercourse through an agreement that has no defined objectives, conditions or deadlines. In addition, the distribution is not even: in 2007, the City of Buenos Aires received only $ 539. There are delays in the delivery of funds and failures in the expenses.</p>
In three years, the Matanza Riachuelo Watershed Authority (ACUMAR, for its acronym in Spanish) transferred a total of $ 20,424,568 to the municipalities involved in the course of the stream, under an agreement that sought to establish the obligations, tasks and deadlines to be met by the parties. According to the National Audit Office (AGN, for its acronym in Spanish), "the laxity of its clauses, the vagueness of the objects and conditions, plus the excess of annexes", make the agreement "difficult to interpret."
The Watchdog stated that the articles setting the deadlines for implementation are "too lax" and that even the obligations of municipalities "often have no deadlines for compliance". The AGN clarified that "the lack of time is explicit", and that this makes difficult the control and the exigency of resolutions.
The report, approved this year on data from the last six months of 2009, adds that in order to obtain "more details about the work to be done, we have to go to the annexes, which also see vagueness and too much breadth."
Transfers to Municipalities
Throughout 2007, ACUMAR sent to the City of Buenos Aires only $ 539 to fulfill the objectives described in the agreement, previously highlighted by its "vagueness". This is described by a comparative table of the AGN, where it also indicates that Avellaneda received $ 1,398,500 for the same period, and that of the 14 beneficiary municipalities, only 4 received without exception the funds corresponding to the years 2007, 2008 and 2009 (see right box).
On the other hand, the control body explained that there were "delays in the delivery of funds" and that "although there is no clearly established deadline", due to the disbursement protocols, arrears were also perceived in account surrenders Of the municipalities. In addition, the auditors noted that, in general, some reports did not even have "the detail of what is rendered, the charges of expenditure and supporting evidence."
The Works of ACUMAR
The Basin Authority explained that there was a work in which almost all the funds allocated were executed, 91%, but that physically less than half of the work was done. For the AGN, the Basin Authority failed to clarify this "mismatch with financial execution". This is the service of Cleaning and Maintenance of Water and Maintenance and Margin Maintenance of the River Matanza, which had an initial value of $ 13,224,198 and was to be completed by December 2009, the date on which ACUMAR reported the data described.
However, in November of the same year, the companies in charge of the service, Rowing SA and Algieri Cultivo SA, were granted an extension of 12 months and an increase of 9.7% of the initial price. According to the calculations of the AGN, it should cost a total of $ 14,508,268, but the resolution of the extension "differed" increasing its value by more than $ 6,000.
Another example is the expansion of the Southeastern Sewage Treatment Plant, in the La Matanza municipality, whose value was $ 93,538,417. It was due to be completed by August 2009, but by that time the work had only advanced by 44%. The AGN said that "there were no records that approved the extension of the deadline."
The audit concluded that there were several works that "present financial and physical executions that have no harmonious relationship". That is to say, that there are works that did not advance, in time and form, according to the execution of the budgets.