In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, at the National Electoral Institute (OTHER) Were detected excessive spendingin 2020 and 2021, in the payment of insurance for major medical expenses, in plane tickets and in its self-service dining room, among other benefits.
In the 2021 Annual Report delivered by the Internal Control Body (OIC) to the Chamber of deputiesit is indicated that the institute allocated almost 500 million pesos -480 million 140 thousand 820 pesos- for the contracting of a group insurance for major medical expenses, another group life insurance and a third group personal accident insurance that covers until 2024.
The observation of the OIC indicates that “it was questioned that with regard to the medical expenses insurance of expenses There were one and two economic proposals for the elderly and personal accident insurance, which was clearly insufficient to be able to carry out the contracting procedure.”
For this reason, “a new market investigation was requested, in which all the necessary elements were exhausted to be able to obtain more than one economic proposal and thus be able to know the market prices and that these could be comparable, ‘correcting partially said market research’”, he clarifies.
It also includes the report that “the dining room service with a self-service system for the staff of the OTHER contracted under the LP-INE-049/2019 tender for 2020, contemplated a contractual budget of 48 million pesos per year.
However, it highlights that it was instructed and it was possible to reduce this expense to only 14 million 586 thousand 980 pesos per year in 2021, with the LP-OTHER-081/2021, “obtaining an average savings percentage of 70 percent”.
Also in travel and plane tickets there were observations from the internal auditor. For national and international transfers, excesses were detected, informing the legislators that “for the contracting of this service, the OIC emphasized the importance of favoring the use of non-refundable tickets, which are cheaper, in order to generate savings for the Institute”.
He explains that, “as a result, unlike in past years, of the 567 plane tickets that were purchased from July to December 2021, 443 were purchased with the non-refundable rate – 78 percent – and only 124 refundable, which which represented a saving in INE spending of 49 percent”.