Assembly keeps contract frauds under wraps

The National Assembly got a knuckle rap from the Office of the Comptroller General when he refused to endorse  a bunch of its temporary “work”contracts.

Following the pattern of recent  months, the Assembly  did not  did not clarify the doubts expressed by the office  over  professional services contracts

La Prensa sent a questionnaire to the president of the Assembly, Yanibel Ábrego, about the use of multi millions of dollars  to hire professional services, but got no answer.

The Comptroller’s Office has not received a response from the Assembly since last year, when it began to question the use of  State funds for controversial hiring practices but this time it stopped the endorsement of form 80, which has become a synonym for an unregulated multi-million dollar slush fund for deputies and their cronies.

Several official and legislative sources confirmed to La Prensa  that there are officials in  the Assembly that carry out frauds with the work contracts, for which they use accomplices, that lend their names to justify the expenses listed on form 80. The Office of the Comptroller is carrying carries out audits of the deputies, but their results are still unknown.

The comptroller, Federico Humbert, addressed a letter to Assembly president, Yanibel Ábrego on April 30 , returning, “without the endorsement requested”, 1,868 employment contracts for professional services, assigned to item 172 of the Assembly, which is officially called “special services”.

The  total of  $7.55 million and includes contracts for professional services from January 2 2018 until June 30, Humbert  based his refusal to endorse the contracts on the fact that the Assembly has not justified the expenses.

Humbert sent, two letters  dated February 14, 2017 and April 13, 2018, in which he asked, both the former Assembly president of the Rubén De León and current president, Yanibel Ábrego, the justification of expenses, without getting an answer.

Ballooning  expenses
In 2014, item 172 (contracts for professional services) was  only $200,000.

In 2015, it  went up to $13 million, and in 2016, to $57 million.  Until October 2017, the expenses of item 172 in service contracts were $22.6 million.

La Prensa confirmed with official sources,  , that  each deputy – who wishes – is assigned a certain amount  of money (out of the $ 30,000 per month for  “trusted staff”), to hire people whose functions are not defined.

The money from these temporary work contracts is listed as item 172.

Only a fraction of the money is paid to its final recipient, while the balance, which ranges between 90% and 95%, returns to the manager of the contracts.

The  comptroller asked  Ábrego to tell him what services these people will provide and what the Assembly  will get from them