Because they had no annual procurement plan, the Colon Theater spent more than $900,000 without tender
<p><span style="line-height: 20.8px;">According to the Audit of the City of Buenos Aires, the lack of investment planning at the Theatre triggered the "excessive" use of a decree allowing the approval of expenditures outside the existing procurement system. The total sum comes from 86% of assets and 47% of consumer goods acquired by this method in 2006.</span></p>
A report by the Auditor General of the City of Buenos Aires (AGCBA, for its acronym in Spanish) states that "the absence of adequate yearly procurement plan" in administering the Colon Theater caused "excessive" use of Decree 1.370 / 01 that allows the Theater to enable "expenses of absolute necessity, away from the current procurement system.”
The watchdog points out that 86% of the assets, $271,407 of a total of $316,262, were purchased "using the method set out in Decree 1,370 / 01," adding that in 47% of the assets of acquired consumption, which is mainly for set and costumes by $ 1,364,781, were also acquired using the direct mode, spending a total of $637,819.
The AGCBA analyzed the forecasts from the area of procurement and contracting of the Colon Theater for 2006. According to the report, it was "merely a general list of planned needs not qualifying for the Annual Procurement Plan because it did not include a detailed breakdown of the assets to be acquired."
Moreover, the analysis of the agreements signed by the Theater revealed "internal control failures between administrative areas" that intervened, and "recordings showing lack of effective enforcement" of those conventions. The Audit could not access the documentation of 7 agreements out of a total of 55 that the Theater signed in 2006. On the others, "altered numbering between records relating to contracts with the same institution" were detected.
The common denominator of the agreements is the intervention of the Colón Theater Foundation. The Foundation receives funds coming from the efforts related to the theater, and intended to support the lyric, choreographic, and operational activity needs. The report of the AGCBA concludes that "the persistence of a regulatory vacuum to formalize the relationship between the Colón Theater Foundation and threatened the integrity and transparency which must prevail in the development of joint activities by not allowing the knowledge of the numbers from the revenue produced.” During the year of the audit, it was not settled in any record if the theater could use the financial resources of the Foundation, which grossed $1,398,596 in regards to the guided tours. "The rented activities carried out by the Foundation could well have been implemented from the Theatre" to add them to their own resources, completed the inspection body.
