Arturo Sanchez Jimenez
Newspaper La Jornada
Sunday May 22, 2022, p. eleven
The Ministry of Public Function has put the magnifying glass on Food Security of Mexico (Segalmex) and its companies Liconsa and Diconsa. It will carry out 57 inspection acts, including audits and reviews, to verify if the recommendations of past years have been complied with, when a corruption plot was detected that, as this newspaper has published, could reach 10 billion pesos.
In the Annual Control Plan, the agency has scheduled 2,846 audits and 945 follow-up reviews of the entire federal government apparatus, privileging the supervision of areas that represent greater risks of violating probity
.
A particularly high number of these reviews will be verified in Segalmex, a company that until April 19 was headed by its founding director, Ignacio Ovalle, who left the post after an adjustment ordered by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, after the Function Public and the Superior Audit of the Federation (ASF) documented possible millionaire damages to the treasury that have led to criminal complaints.
The control plan is integrated with activities carried out by internal control bodies and central offices.
his training favors acts that focus on the areas of greatest risk of corruption, such as public contracting, and has a preventive approach, in order to strengthen the efficiency and effectiveness of the public service
according to the Public Function.
Among the audits carried out on Segalmex, one will review its financial statements, another to verify the operation of the price guarantee program for basic products, as well as verification of the application of the preventive and corrective recommendations raised in previous years.
In Liconsa, the Public Function reviews, among other aspects, the administration of warehouses and inventories, the financial statements and the control of the list of beneficiaries of the Social Milk Supply.
Diconsa supervises, with a focus on combating corruption, the acquisitions of different programs, such as the rural supply program, and the contracting of services, in addition to analyzing the financial statements.
The Ministry of Public Function detected the previous irregularities in the use of resources for fiscal years 2019, 2020 and 2021, for which reason at the beginning of the current year the federal government announced that three high-ranking Segalmex officials were dismissed, after alleged illicit acts and acts of corruption were verified, which were reported to the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic.
In 2020 alone, the reviews of the Superior Audit of the Federation determined that Segalmex and its companies must clarify the destination of 8 thousand 636 million pesos, including 5 thousand 640 million pesos destined for unjustified contracts, as well as pesticide payments. , corn or beans without delivery-reception certificates, or differences between accounting records and warehouse inventories.
