In fiscal year 2014, the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate did not provide information about the fate of 3.1 billion pesos [US$170 million], revealed the Superior Auditor of the Federation (ASF).
In its General Report of Public Accounts for 2014, the auditing agency said that both chambers of Congress hindered the assessment of the
"the reasonableness of the expenses or verification that these funds were used to conduct legislative work. ''In both cases, special grants were awarded [to each political party in Congress] based on agreements made in prior fiscal years; however, such should only be allowed in exceptional circumstances of a one-time nature to address specific issues.
In the Chamber of Deputies there was limited accountability for funds spent in grants and other related legislative activities, which in 2014 amounted to 1.9 billion pesos [US$103 million], representing a quarter of the total budget used by that chamber. Through the intervention of the Supreme Auditor Office, in the course of the review in the Chamber of Deputies, 3,167,000 pesos [US$174,000] were recovered.
For the Senate, no documentation was provided to support the spending of 1.3 billion pesos [US$72 million], representing a third of the total budget.
The Auditor reiterated that the documentation was not provided supporting the use of the funds allocated under the heading "Allowance for Parliamentary Groups [political parties]" and,
"therefore, it did not have the information to enable assessment of the reasonableness of the expenditures or to verify that these funds were used to conduct legislative work.''Spanish original