Some publications in various media have reported frivolous spending of the Covid Fund by officials in places such as restaurants and coffee shops.
The Government of Jalisco would like to clarify the marginality of those reports.
During the month of March 2020, the declaration of health emergency due to COVID-19 was issued by the Federal Government, therefore, the State Governor issued an agreement to establish prevention, containment, diagnosis, and care measures for the COVID pandemic, so through item 4418, destined for Unforeseen Expenditures, various health care programs and economic reactivation were attended.
Through the participation of the economic reactivation table and with the authorization of the Congress of the State, 3.52 billion pesos were reallocated to implement various programs, regarding which periodic reports were presented.
With the "Jalisco Plan for Economic Reactivation" through the Ministry of Economic Development (Sedeco), 2 Programs were established with an allocation of 450 million pesos, 180 million pesos for Restart and 270 million pesos for Reactiva, respectively.
In the Reactive and Restart Guidelines, both published on July 4, 2020, in the Official Newspaper of the State of Jalisco, it is established that Sedeco may dispose of up to 3% of the Program budget for indirect expenses or program operation for the fulfillment of its objectives. Indirect expenses should be understood as: food, stationery supplies, consumables, messaging, internet services, printed matter, hiring of personnel in the form of fees or payment of per diem.
For food for these 2 programs, 9,709 pesos were exercised, which represents 0.002% of the total fund of the Reactiva and Reinicia programs. This is due to the workloads and overtime for Sedeco personnel, in charge of designing and operating the COVID-19 Contingency and Economic Reactivation programs, who worked a great deal of overtime.
The last invoice issued for this item is the one mentioned in some media, for a total of $ 2,763.99, and corresponds to food for the consumption of 16 public servants.
Such amount is for the cost of food in a place where a low-cost executive menu is offered, and the decision to dine there was due to its low cost and the proximity of the establishment to the Sedeco facilities. And as the reference had already been made, this was to meet the food needs of public servants who worked overtime hours to comply with the operation of the support programs implemented by the State Government.
Part of the newspaper reports state that "with a charge to the fund, PVC cards were purchased for the Ministry of Public Finance, which are used as identification credentials or to access buildings. In total, 60 thousand pieces were bought for which 885 thousand pesos were paid.'' It is important to clarify that this is an error and omission on the part of their investigation since the cards that were purchased and which were mentioned, were used to be delivered to the beneficiaries of the Income Protection Program, through which the steps followed to access the financial support granted were provided.
As for the direct awards mentioned in the newspaper report; the Law of Government Purchases, Disposals and Contracting of Services of the State of Jalisco and its Municipalities, in its article 73 establishes "The acquisitions, leases and contracting of services by direct award" may take place when:
Fraction IV. Derived from a fortuitous event or force majeure, it is not possible to obtain goods or services through the public call procedure in the time required to deal with the eventuality in question, such as urgent cases caused by accidents, meteorological events, health contingencies or unexpected events. . In this case, the amounts or concepts must be limited to what is strictly necessary to deal with it, and must inform the Committee for subsequent validation.
The health emergency due to COVID-19 complies with the provisions to make purchases in direct award.
Finally, the Programs met the stated objectives of supporting the economic reactivation of the state and the protection of jobs in Jalisco.