The General Comptroller’s Office (CGC) is conducting an audit against the Secretariat of Social Works of the President’s Wife (Sosep). The entity is questioning the use of resources from a program to provide food to senior citizens.
The audit against Sosep is currently underway, but if necessary, according to the auditors’ criteria, a complaint could even be filed if the data warrants a detailed investigation.
In total, the CGC is currently conducting five audits against Sosep, but only one is for doubts in the execution of public resources by the current administration, the other four cases correspond to the administration of former President Alejandro Giammattei.
Preliminary data available to the CGC indicate that Sosep has only allocated resources to one center in Guatemala City that provides food to senior citizens, leaving aside 49 other centers located in the interior of the Republic.
The Senior Citizen Program is responsible for providing support to 2,950 adults over 60 years of age, according to data available to the CGC in the current audit process.
Data obtained from the Sosep electronic portal indicate that the institution has a budget of Q 200 million 974 thousand, of which Q53 million 268 thousand are allocated for programs focused on children and the elderly.
A response was sought from Sosep regarding the ongoing audit due to the apparent lack of attention to Senior Citizen programs, but a response is still awaited.
Other audits
The CGC also carries out four other audits at Sosep, but these are due to apparent anomalies detected during the previous administration of Alejandro Giammattei’s government.
The first of these is due to apparent doubts in a series of payments, the amount of which is still being kept secret by the Comptroller’s Office. These payments were allegedly delivered to the former secretary of Sosep, Sara Eugenia López Gálvez. This audit was requested by the current head of Sosep, Zulma Calderón Ordoñez.
The second is for an internal audit process for a possible shortage of Q74,129 for warehouse movement cards for income and expenses. The audit was requested by the legal department of Sosep.
The third audit is to verify the hiring, dismissal and budget execution processes of Sosep, an evaluation that was requested by deputy José Chic, from the Voluntad Oportunidad y Solidaridad (Vos) bloc.
The latest audit is for an extension of events reported in 2023 for an amount of Q60 million 765 thousand. It resulted in a complaint for apparent anomalies in the purchase of food amounting to Q2 million 176 thousand.
Issues statement
Last Friday, Sosep issued a press release rejecting the audits that the CGC is carrying out at the institution, labeling them as “institutional harassment,” considering that the agency has carried out more audits this year than in previous years.
“We respectfully call on the oversight body to adhere to its functions, to assume its role with full autonomy, aimed at adding value and supporting the development of public functions,” the statement said.
For its part, the CGC explained that it is only a direct audit of the current administration of Sosep; however, it has made requests for apparent mismanagement of funds from the previous administration, since it is the current authorities who handle documents and data that will be used for the inspection process.
📌 The Secretariat of Social Works of the Wife of the President of the Republic -SOSEP- informs: pic.twitter.com/vimBWJOgQS
— SOSEP (@SosepGob) July 26, 2024
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