The ISER Controls Their Ascribed Institutes in a "Precarious" Way
<p style="text-align: justify;">The plant broadcasters and operators are 42 institutions that adhere to their curriculum throughout the country and, despite the obligation to supervise them once a year, the AGN between 2007 and 2009 saw only two inspections were made. And it works with temporary and experimental regulations since 1985. There are delays in delivery of professional licenses.</p>
The General Audit Office (AGN, for its acronym in Spanish) described as "precarious" the controls made by the Institute of Radio Education (ISER) with over 42 institutions around the country that are ascribed to their curriculum. According to a report approved late last year, although the center of national broadcasters have an obligation to check the operation of all its sub-offices at least once a year, between January 2007 and April 2009 only two were inspected, Posadas in Misiones and La Rioja.
The ISER, which during the period under review was still working under the aegis of the Federal Broadcasting Committee (COMFER, for its acronym in Spanish) depends since October 2009 for the Federal Authority of Audiovisual Communication Services, also known as AFSCA. However with this change in orbit, the AGN detected that the Institute has had a "temporary and experimental" regulation since 1985, which should have only been in place for 120 days.
The auditors also noted that COMFER had no direct access to the files produced by the ISER, as the watchdog requested information from 15 of the 42 institutes and received only four cases with full background information. The audited Institute claimed that some of the required documentation was under the guardianship of another company which would be in a "pre-trial stage."
Another of ISER’s abilities is to evaluate the graduates of institutes who are aspiring to become national announcers. However, the AGN observed qualifying examinations pre-printed with the respective final note are "contradicting" in two cases.
In addition to announcers, the ISER is responsible for granting authorizations for professional technical operator broadcasting studio and broadcasting transmitting plant. That has a maximum period of 30 working days. But, according to the audit, 43 subsets ISER called "signed" (because they met all of the requirements for the qualification), in 29 of those cases the delivery extended for 85 working days and, in the remaining 14 bundles until the closing date of the audit COMFER had not issued the enabling resolution, with an average delay of 6.5 months.
In turn, the audit said the process of applying sanctions to records that did not comply with the regulation was delayed for more than 2 years (there is one that almost exceeded 5 years), even though a resolution determined that the process should not take more than 90 working days.
