A report from the General Audit Office of the City of Buenos Aires (AGCBA, for its acronym in Spanish) found that one out of every three subsidies provided by the State of Buenos Aires to finance cultural activities was not surrendered.

The research, approved this year, dealt with the way in which the Metropolitan Fund for Culture, Arts and Sciences was administered during 2014, for which it analyzed a sample of 62 subsidies, of which in 21 cases no justification was presented Of expenditures (33.9%) and, of the remaining 41, 27 completed the process, although outside the deadlines.

The Watchdog explained that the Metropolitan Culture Promotion Program has the objective of helping individuals and corporations in the concretion and sustainability of their projects, and that, in that sense, grants subsidies to artists as well as to those who protect Heritage, organize meetings and even produce audiovisual content.

The mechanism, however, completes the justification of how public resources were used. The report states: "The regulations stipulate that the obligation to submit the surrender must be fulfilled no more than 120 days after the receipt of the subsidy". And it adds a key fact: "The areas in charge of the procedure have the responsibility to claim their observation in a timely manner."

It is on this last point that the AGCBA observed that, in the case of subsidies that were not rendered, "there were no formal or informal injunctions" from the Buenos Aires Government to comply with these procedures.

But there is more: of those 41 surrenders presented, 28 were not approved by the corresponding areas, which is - strictly speaking - the last step of the process analyzed by the auditors.

On the other hand, these state agencies - which the report calls substantive areas - also record "pronounced delays" in intervening in subsidy requests: "It is estimated that, on average, 154 days elapse (from the deadline for Submit projects) and issuing opinions, "the report says.

Time is another observation of the investigation: "In 27 cases the date of execution of the project (to be subsidized) is not declared, what prevents to establish the temporary validity of the vouchers in relation to the moment of realization (of the event)," explains the Audit and adds that, "without prejudice to what has been said, 13 of these 27 cases are verified, the surrender (expenses) includes receipts that exceed the subsequent period of 4 months from the date of deposit."

Pearls

The surrenders of expenses were done by means of the presentation of vouchers that justified the destiny of the delivered funds.

Well, to complete, the survey lists some findings of the bills that intervened in the processes of subsidies to different cultural initiatives.

For example, there were 13 cases in which "it was found that the submissions presented included receipts whose addressee was not entered."

There were, in addition, two other dossiers that proposed - each one by its side - to a supplier "with exclusivity"; the issue was that, in surrender, bills were in the name of other people.

The similarity between two files was also brought to the attention of the AGCBA. The work says: "The close relationship between the projects presented, linked through their beneficiaries, common objectives, and the development period, entails the granting of two subsidies for the same cultural proposal, exceeding in 100% the maximum amount to be awarded on the line, by taking the two presentations together."

And, in case something was missing, the control body remarked two other cases. On the one hand that of "a supplier firm that relates directly to the beneficiary" of the subsidy. How did the Audit know this? Basically because "the chairman of the board of the firm that issues the voucher, presides, in turn, the company requesting the subsidy, of which, in addition, is a shareholder."

On the other hand, after analyzing the vouchers included in another account, it was detected that the person who issued the invoices "maintains direct relationship with the applicant of the subsidy on a the marital and commercial level."