A permanent audit of the Santa Fe government, which began in January and is still in process, detected that almost half of the “soup kitchens” managed by picketing organizations in the province they didn’t exist. The investigation by officials of Maximiliano Pullaro has already “recovered” some 100 million misallocated pesos and it is estimated that The global amount involved in these maneuvers would reach $600 million.
Since January 2, the provincial government launched a survey of more than 800 institutions and carried out audits on 481, of which 222 are in rosary beads and 259 in the north center of Santa Fe. Of that total, 160 organizations were suspended for misconduct and irregularities, which led to 10 presentations before local justice.
Official sources confirmed to Infobae that identity theft, non-existent places or that declared a food service that they did not provide were detected. According to that report, the first presentations in Santa Fe courts occurred on February 21 and then two extensions of complaints were made, on April 11 and May 16, respectively.
The survey of Pullaro’s management is carried out on the three food programs that the province offers to some 350 thousand people with low economic resources. About 55% of people suffer from different levels of poverty, Santa Fe has the Unique Citizen Card, the Institutional Card to buy food in specific places and a nutrition program.
The total investment amounts to 2,000 million pesos, the majority channeled through social organizations, picketers and other institutions that manage the care of people and families with food problems.
The audits that were launched since January in Santa Fe have similarities with those that the government has been carrying out, through the Ministry of Human Capital, headed by Sandra Pettovello, and which precipitated an open conflict between the administration of Javier Milei and the groups picketers Both in the Nation and in the province, the Evita Movement is one of those affected and where irregularities were detected.
“We started the audits in January and we already have almost 60% audited. We found non-existent places, dining rooms that were private homes or places that had nothing to do with a dining room or a glass of milk. We detected an empty warehouse, an empty warehouse or even that they gave an address that was a public space or a plaza,” explained one of the official sources.
From the Pullaro government, in any case, they clarified that beyond the irregularities that they began to detectattendance was never cut offthe existing procedures were always followed and, as irregularities or faults were foundproceeded to cut”. “And the money that is saved, the State does not keep it, it does not save it, but it redistribute in other places,” they explained.
“There are social movements very characteristic of national nature where most of the failures were detected. It is important to clarify that they themselves were the ones who provided us with their listings to make the controls and In half there were irregularities or they did not exist“, they indicated and named, among others, the Avoid Movement and, further away, to the Classist and Combative Current.
The provincial government insisted that “care for families was not interrupted” and admitted that, when the soup kitchens were asked to be held accountable for having the Institutional Card, those responsible explained to the agents who went to check that in the last seven months, none of them asked for certificates, tickets or other elements to confirm the correct application of the assigned public resources.
