The Municipality of San Carlos has 30 days, since its notification on October 6, to respond to the final report issued by the Ñuble Regional Comptroller’s Office on the maintenance, repair and replacement of luminaires in the commune, in which it must justify the payment of $265 million pesos and respond to a series of irregularities detected during 2021 and 2022.
The document from the controlling entity indicates that the municipality must prove the collection of fines of $37 million pesos for breach of contract from the construction company INVERCIC SpA, which was awarded the tender. He also mentions that instead of replacing sodium bulbs with LED lights, “it was proven that
been changing sodium lights for another of the same type.”
“It was observed that the payments lack the documents and endorsements that must be presented in accordance with the requirements of the specifications that regulate the contract for the maintenance and repair service of urban and rural public lighting in the commune of San Carlos, therefore that the municipality will have to send to this Regional Comptroller’s Office, the documents that support the payments that allow proof of the effective provision of the service for an amount of $265,332,645, within a period of 30 business days, counted from the notification of this report”, the report highlights.
In the audit, the Contraría found that 33 pages of the service book for May 2022 were signed by the former municipal administrator Adán Contreras Suazo, corresponding to works that were paid in November of the same year, for an amount of $33 million, however, in That period the technical inspector of the service (ITS) was Helga Contreras Matus.
The mayor of San Carlos, Gastón Suazo, spoke on the matter and indicated that the Legal Directorate, Secplan, Works and Finance of the municipality have been working to submit all the information required by the controlling entity to correct these observations.
“We are fully convinced that a large part of the observations will be corrected, since, for example, the fines have already been determined and issued by the ITS in charge of the contract. The company Inversic has already been required to send all the information related to the number of workers, gross salaries and qualified personnel required in the bidding rules,” he explained.
The councilor maintained that, in relation to the lack of documentation that supports the effective provision of the service, all payment decrees have been analyzed and determined which documents will be required from the company regarding the years 2021 and 2022.
“They have no way to justify the payments”
For councilor Jorge Silva, this is a serious situation because the lack of probity and control of the Municipality is revealed. “The serious thing is that they have no way of justifying more than $250 million in payments, the fines were not collected (…) This report corresponds to the year 2021 and 2022, the year 2023 will be much more serious because the violations are repeated. same faults where there is no way to verify work orders, there is no registry of the luminaires that must be repaired or replaced,” he said.
He recalled that prior to this final report, in September the General Comptroller’s Office of Ñuble issued a pre-report that was not responded to by the Municipality of San Carlos. “The municipality did not have a way to respond to the pre-report within the deadline. The answer that the lawyer gave was that they did not have documentation to respond. What is happening is so serious, delicate and complex that the municipality did not have the documentation to respond to the pre-report, that is why the final report from the Comptroller’s Office arrives so soon,” Silva highlighted.
The councilor assured that there is no registry of the luminaires that must be replaced. “Here, month after month, repairs are made and after a few days the lights fail again, there are entire blocks and sectors like that, or poles were installed where they should not have been placed,” he said.
For his part, councilor Daniel Pizarro stated that councilors must analyze the measures to take in the event of detected faults. “The observations are clear from the Comptroller’s Office, there is no support for the issue of the amounts associated with the payment statements. There is a lot of precariousness around the issue of contracts, specifically with the number of professionals linked to the subject, the lack of a general registry of all the luminaires at the community level, the replacement of luminaires is not related to the services provided, so it is not generates traceability of the accomplished facts, so this is a worrying issue for the councilors,” he said, while questioning the installation of lights on private land where there are no homes.
Meanwhile, Councilor Pedro Méndez pointed out that on Monday they will hold a meeting to address the issue and learn the details about it, in order to take the appropriate actions. “A situation of this type is worrying because as councilors we have to take the pertinent safeguards and send whatever to the parties indicated by law. We have to ask the opinion of the heads of Control and Legal Affairs,” he indicated.
