An Official from Salta Took Money Allocated for Teacher Tutoring; its Unknown Whether Or Not He Paid the Tutors
<p><span style="line-height: 1.6em;">There were two checks totaling $65 billion to pay for the pedagogical support of beneficiary students of stimulus scholarships. According to the Provincial Watchdog, the money was taken by an employee of the Unit that coordinates these funds. The Audit could not verify if finally the tutorships were paid with that money.</span></p> <div> </div>
The Audit of the Province of Salta (AGP Salta, for its acronym in Spanish) detected that an official of the Coordination and Implementation of Special Projects Unit (UCEPE) took money for teaching tutorials. It is not known if the money was correctly allocated.
This is the UCEPE, the organism that should coordinate and manage project and educational work funds. It was created in the framework of the Federal Education Pact in order to execute the organizational and financial aspects of the National Institute of Educational Technology (INET, for its acronym in Spanish), which serves as a tool for policy development related to professional technical education.
The Institute is empowered to finance tutorships for the pedagogical support of beneficiaries’ students of stimulus scholarships. The watchdog said there were "two checks for a total $69,546.00" corresponding to the months of November and December 2007, which were addressed to teachers of the provinces. However, it was detected that the checks were cashed over the counter in January 2008 and that the "beneficiary was an employee of the UCEPE”.
For the watchdog, "there is no evidence that the tutorships were paid with funds extracted from the Bank". This means that it was not possible to check if the money was paid to whom it belonged.
Moreover, the AGP of Salta, in its report approved this year on 2008 data, found other flaws, this time in relation to the construction jobs of eight schools in the departments of Oran, Rivadavia, and City of Salta. Among the observations, there are: the expansion and repair work of the School 4171 – La Merced Vieja, for $ 345,422.76, which "was stopped in March 2009 and finally, the contract was terminated in November 2009". The “UCEPE institutionally took no action on the breach of the contract", even though the Director of the school had reported the breach in March of that year.
In addition, of the constructions analyzed by Audit, it emerged that there is no evidence that "the contractor had complied with the insurance policies filing of Civil Liability, fire, and personal accidents”.
Others Irregularities
The INET destined $ 69,903.77 for the construction of a laboratory of Physics and Chemistry, but was under "direct contract". For this type of contract, the auditors remarked that it "is incorrect". It should be noted that "the allocated offered was not registered with the AFIP" (IRS) and the remaining budgets that were submitted for this work had "no business address and presented a nonexistent CUIT” (or SSN).
Meanwhile, the watchdog noted irregularities in the contracting of multimedia equipment for INET libraries, for a total of $ 299,311.93, whose provider began its activities in February 2008, "very close to the time of the award", which happened a month later. And even, "payment orders issued have a date previous to the procurement procedure" and "could not confirm that all goods had been delivered."
Finally, the watchdog indicated that UCEPE made "successive monthly costs" for renting a van that cost $116,432.84, "also by direct contracting." The auditors noted that "the collations of three budgets were not verified" and "rent bills were not shaped by the competent authority."