Arturo Sánchez Jimenez
La Jornada newspaper
Monday, December 20, 2021, p. 4
The old and recent archives of the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) navigate in chaos, both physically and digitally. In its physical archives, the agency has documents that are more than a century old, but it does not have a historical archive, nor does it protect them from deterioration, it also registers no progress in the digitization of documents and records for their preservation.
The prosecutor Alejandro Gertz Manero received in June the results of the most recent audit carried out by the Ministry of Public Function (SFP) of the document management of the FGR, which also found that its internal regulations and structure have not been updated, that it has deficiencies and does not comply with different aspects of the General Law of Archives (LGA).
The audit 01/2021 Document management and file administration
, practiced between April and May at the FGR by the Internal Control Body –which represents the SFP within the prosecutor’s office– proposed to analyze the procedures and norms that regulate its document management and the administration of archives.
One of the main observations is that the institution does not have a historical archive, as mandated by the LGA, and although it has files up to 112 years old, which due to their characteristics could be classified as historical documents, they are kept in environments without special conditions. for its conservation, such as optimal climate and temperature to avoid the degradation of its materials.
The review found that the FGR lacked between 2019 and 2021 the file management and administration system policy indicated in its organic law, and that this lack was covered only this year.
Meanwhile, the internal regulations on document management and archives are outdated for five to seven years and are not adequate to the character of the constitutionally autonomous body that the prosecution has today.
It was found that the integration of the interdisciplinary group that should help the analysis of its processes and procedures of its document management is pending. This group, according to the SFP, operated until 2016, but two years have passed without it meeting, which is against the law on the matter.
The SFP auditors did not locate the documentary inventories of the FGR delegations in Jalisco, Oaxaca, Yucatán and the state of Mexico corresponding to 2018, among other irregularities.
The audit verified the lack of automated systems for electronic document management that enables the production, organization, consultation and preservation of documents established by the LGA.
The FGR, according to the review report, has made no progress in the digital safeguarding of documents and does not have actions for digital preservation, technological surveillance and information security, as indicated by the LGA.
Due to all these anomalies, the SFP issued 12 observation certificates to the FGR to improve, strengthen and implement internal control mechanisms in the field of archives.
