The Superior Audit of the Federation (ASF) found as recoverable or to clarify 12,252 million pesos of federal public spending, the above in accordance with the results of the second part of the review to the Public Account 2020, which delivered yesterday, October 28 , to the Surveillance Commission of the Chamber of Deputies.
If the amount pending clarification in the first installment is added, the sum amounts to 12,719 million pesos. Most of this amount corresponds to resources exercised by the states of the country.
The data of the supervisory body indicate that, in total, 1,523 audits have been scheduled for the 2020 resources, so of the 750 that have been carried out so far, there are observations for 13,244 million pesos, of which 525,557 pesos they have already been justified. Remaining an amount of 12,719 million 220,000 pesos to be paid.
By sector, federalized spending is the area that adds the highest amount of observations with 10,495 million pesos to be solved; followed by economic development, with 1,300 million; social development with 613 million pesos and the federal government with 296 million pesos in observations.
The second installment of the 2020 Public Account audit consisted of 625 individual reports that are added to the 125 submitted on June 30, during the first installment. The third and final part is expected to be delivered in February 2021.
They ask for more tools
During the delivery of the reports, David Colmenares Páramo, superior auditor of the Federation, considered that the work of the ASF should not be exceeded by external issues and nor by the emergence of new forms of corruption networks, such as Pandora Papers and Panama Papers.
“The Superior Audit of the Federation should not be overwhelmed by external conditions, nor should there be gaps between the characteristics and powers of the auditing entity in the face of the complexity of the actions of public entities, even in the face of the emergence of sophisticated forms of corruption”, detailed.
“Obviously we are doing intelligence work to locate and follow up on that wealth of information that arises from journalist information,” he said.
For this reason, he called on the members of the Lower House to provide the ASF with more and better tools to carry out its oversight work.
“As the regulatory framework provides more tools to the Audit to simplify, streamline its processes, as well as to broaden and diversify the scope and depth of the audit, we will be able to observe a growth of institutional impact on the quality of public spending” , he indicated.
Likewise, he stressed that as part of the progress made by the body under his charge, there is the creation of a public defender’s office on serious administrative offenses, in addition to establishing as a strategic axis the digitization and innovation of processes that has materialized in various projects and that have begun to fundamentally modify the way it is audited.
Regarding the control of state and municipal spending, the auditor added that in recent years intelligence technologies have also been incorporated that have made it possible to mark supplier networks of shell companies, work that will be strengthened with the creation of an audit area forensic within federal spending.
On the subject, he stressed that the ASF has detected three cases that the forensic audit continues to review.
Reference-www.eleconomista.com.mx