The Andalusian general auditor retains three proposals for action reports in a drawer | Spain

The general controller of Andalusia, Miguel Ángel Figueroa, He has kept in a drawer for four months two proposals for action report that his auditors have sent him to act against the Public Agency IDEA and the Metropolitan Transport Consortium in Seville, for ignoring his accounting recommendations for spending control. A proposal against the Andalusian Education Agency is also paralyzed for a month and a half, which has fallen into a broken bag. The delegated auditors urged Figueroa to take measures against these three public bodies, but the head of the general intervention, appointed by the Autonomous Government (PP) at the beginning of the year, has retained them without offering explanations.

The general auditor does not have a legally stipulated period to ratify or refute a proposal for an action report, but the usual guideline has never exceeded a prudential period of two weeks, underline sources from the supervisory agency. Especially since the urgency is urgent, since the auditors propose a report of action to their boss when public bodies repeatedly disregard their warnings to correct irregular procedures of spending. « It is very serious. Between the proposal and the report there is no term, but it is decided yes or not fast, because if it does not proceed (the action report) we must respond to the auditor that proposes with a motivated resolution, » sources of the supervisory agency lament.

Figueroa was in charge of the general intervention In early January from the Public Agency IDEA. A month later, on February 5, he received a tough proposal for an action report on his previous management as an idea director (between 2022 and 2024): of the 30 measures recommended by the intervener, the agency only attended three, 13 were in the process of implementing and 14 had not been implemented as of December 14 (46%). Given this disobedience of due management by Figueroa and its subordinates in Idea, a month and a half later the delegated auditor raised a proposal for a action report.

Instead of refraining from conflict of interest and deriving the proposal to the head of the Financial Control Division and Continuous Supervision I, Alicia Castro, Figueroa has kept it in a drawer for four months. Asked about the Andalusian Ministry of Economy, Finance and European Funds, a spokeswoman has claimed that it cannot detail the management of the times of the general auditor, despite the fact that the agency is integrated into said Ministry. Figueroa has refused to answer.

The inspector censorship in her proposal for a action report how the Idea Directorate incurred an inaction that made it impossible to recover part of a liabilities of 115 million euros that have been dragging for decades. Now the agency tries to eliminate this balance from a stroke, according to the Ministry of Finance.

“For 15 years (11 with the PSOE in power, 4 with the PP), the agency has not performed any action aimed at the recovery of the amounts delivered to different companies as a loan. Otherwise, the prescription would have been interrupted, which has not happened according to what an idea. These loans, ”the auditor censures in her proposal for a high action report to Figueroa, to which this newspaper has had access.

« Concrete correction measures can be taken to correct the observed deficiencies (…) These are recommendations derived from provisions of special relevance and with serious negative effects (…) the period of two years elapsed since the issuance of the final report in which the aforementioned recommendations were formulated, » the proposal for a action report is taken into account. The writing, of 42 pages, condenses the measures that idea has ignored and the information that has not contributed for years of monitoring by the auditors that audit it.

The general intervention has put a lot of serious repair for the huge idea of ​​an idea accounting, agency created to boost the market with companies, very questioned in he case of the ERE and now in liquidation phase. The auditors have issued an unfavorable report, three reports for accounting responsibility and an action report proposal.

Other postponed action reports

In parallel, on February 14 Figueroa received the proposal for the report of action on the Transport Consortium in Seville for lack of implementation of recommendations during the year 2020. The critical report, raised by the Financial Control and Continuous Control Division and continuous supervision 2, demands to claim 195,000 euros paid to the concessionary company of the Plaza de Armas Station of Sevilla for different works that the company must assume the private company. In addition, the auditor urged the ex officio review of the agreement of the Board of Directors of the Consortium reached in 2021 to approve “measures to restore the economic balance of the public service management contract” in the exploitation of said Sevillian bus station. The two heads of division who raised the proposals for acting reports regarding the idea and the Sevillian transport consortium were dismissed by Figueroa under the excuse of a restructuring that has not yet occurred six months later.

Finally, the General Auditor has received a proposal for an action report against the Andalusian Public Education Agency (APAE) on April 23 for having divided the contracts of the school transport service offered by the Board. The APAE ignored a non -compliance with special relevance detected in exercise 2021, written by the Financial Control and Continuous Supervision Division I.

« The APAE, to give continuity to the provision of the school transport service once the extensions of the current contracts tendered through open procedures have been exhausted, has concluded supersimlified or abbreviated open procedures and a multitude of minor contracts, reducing the amount of its object to adjust to the quantitative limitations of those procedures, » the auditor censures. The auditor reproaches the public agency not to eliminate “any type of subdivision of the contract object” in order to guarantee the advertising of the granting of the school transport service.

The auditor urges his superior because the risk of decline in the treasury is high and has been clear that the hiring by the agency, which is still applied today despite its demands to be eliminated, is completely irregular: “The multiplication and atomization of the procedures urged by the agency to provide the school transport service in recent years has led to that, the fruit of this amalgam of open procedures Or « abbreviated » simplified, as well as minor contracts, the risk of fraud and collusion is significantly increased.  »

Since the arrival of Figueroa at the head of the general intervention, the internal critical voices that accuse him of « paralysis » increase, according to several testimonies of senior officials belonging to the body. Apart from the three proposals for action reports that it keeps in a drawer, the general auditor has not yet submitted, almost six months after its appointment, a general report with the most relevant results of the execution of the Annual Financial Control Plan that left its predecessor, completed and ready to raise it to the counselor, Carolina España. María Antonia González’s team, dismantled by Figueroa, left the General Report of Exercises 2022 and 2023 that Spain must submit to the Board Governing Council, as required by article 63 of the Regulation of Organization and Operation of the Intervention, in force since 2022. « Work is being done on the elaboration of these reports », a spokesman for the Ministry of the Treasury.