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| Auditor Juan Manuel Portal delivering 2014 report to Chamber of Deputies Photo José Antonio López |
When delivering the General Report of the Public Accounts for 2014, the head of the Superior Auditor of the Federation (ASF), Juan Manuel Portal, said that of the 1,199 audits carried out, it could not resolve the expenditure of 42.7 billion pesos [US$2.35 billion]. Therefore, 1,871 inquiries regarding administrative responsibilities will be presented to internal comptrollers and there are 1,641 thousand petitions for review for presumed damage to government assets.
In a subsequent press conference, Portal said that between 2000 and 2013 there is a total of 664 criminal complaints and the amount involved in financial loss amounts to 26 billion pesos [US$1.4 billion].
He estimates that this year, when everything has been reviewed, there could be more than 100 complaints filed. He said that there are currently 541 previous complaints being investigated by public prosecutors, 21 of which have been presented to judges and 12 resulted in a non-exercise of criminal action.
During the delivery of the report, Portal said that there are 11 key areas of risk arising from the audit of the Public Accounts for 2014, the second one for the current government [which took office Dec. 1, 2012]. Among them, he highlighted procurement, contracting and investments, since even when contracts meet the standards, they "do not imply a net benefit to the State."
These contracts include direct awards to agencies of the three levels of government [federal, state and municipal], to public universities, institutes and others which do not have the ability to meet their responsibility, resulting in subcontracts that exceed the limit and generate over-charges.
The auditor said that in public works there is another risk factor, where untimely or poor planning, procurement and implementation of work were detected. These included unfinished work and significant increases in the amount of investment, changes to the original project, extensions of deadlines for the completion of stages, and serious shortcomings in control and supervision of projects.
In public social service programs there was also duplication and lack of coordination, resulting in gaps, overlap and inefficient use of resources, especially in the health field. Also, documentation regarding the beneficiaries of social programs is poor and there isn't a single standard.
''The diversity of records shows a lack of control and of quality of information regarding recipients of support.''The ASF warned that with the increase in the supply of services provided by private individuals,
"involvement in public services has not been without its shortcomings in meeting objectives, discretionality in decision-making, quality of goods offered and lack of transparency.''It warned of deficiencies in the design and implementation of policies to address social problems where performance audits showed the lack of specialized agencies with the capacities to achieve the stated purposes. In addition, there are inaccuracies in defining the target population and the processes for monitoring, control and evaluation of subsidies and a lack of relevance or lack of mechanisms for evaluating results.
Portal called for progress in the secondary legislation for the National Anticorruption System because
''many of the concerns arising out of the results in the report we present today are answered with the system.''
MV Note: Constitutional amendments establishing the Anticorruption System were passed last year. The current Congress has to pass implementing legisaltion.Spanish original