Based on a performance audit conducted recently, the Commission of Audit (CA) found that the Education and Youth Affairs Bureau (DSEJ, according to the Portuguese abbreviation) didn’t prepare overall budgets for project works in relation to construction, relocating and renovating its educational and youth activity centres and, at the same time, engaged in the procurements of luxurious building materials, furniture and equipment for the centres. CA must underline that public departments should act with prudence when handling public money and should always strive for a balance between economy and social needs and avoiding unnecessary “show-off works”.
Since the handover to mid-2008, DSEJ spent more than 140 million patacas of public money on project works for its 16 educational and youth activity centres. In the report, CA criticized DSEJ for not controlling the budget of project works, demonstrated in the following situations: Five project works on the educational and youth activity centers were awarded to project companies at prices exceeding the initial budgets by the range of approximately 490, 000 patacas (16.45%) and up to 16,000,000 patacas (135.95%); lacking of careful consideration in accepting recommendations of project companies to procure brand-named furniture from sole distributors, spending 128,000 patacas on 80 folding chairs costing 1,600 patacas each, and 88,200 patacas on 28 stainless steel toilet paper holders costing 3,150 patacas each; the Psycho-pedagogical and Special Education Center was moved from its original premises after 20 months of use and spending 1,100,000 patacas on renovation which were completely scrapped.
CA also found that DSEJ did not sign contracts or agreements with the project companies in order to safeguard its pertaining rights and that it used to make payments to project companies before services rendered, a practice which is not normal amongst public departments. DSEJ put out public tenders for project works before securing sufficient funds for the projects, resulting in increased risk of having to pay higher prices. In addition, DSEJ had no written rules or mechanism for the project companies selection process and that it frequently uses the exemption clauses on written price quotation and thus awarding directly to certain companies design contracts and the acquisition of furniture and equipment of certain brands and models, which is against the principle laid down in the “Instructions for Procurement of Goods and Services”. Furthermore, design contracts awarded directly, under the justification of “timeline for the design is tight”, were concluded with huge delays, of up to 3 years and 4 months in the worst case.
In the report, CA recommended that all public departments should established a mechanism for controlling expenses, preparing sectional and overall budgets for project works according to the principle of economy and setting a cap on spendings; they should establish an adequate mechanism for regulating the receipt of services, whereby payments should only be made after the certification that the project companies have concluded all the works stated in and according to the signed contract; the use of exemption clauses in the Decree Law 122/84/M should be justified and reasonable; the public departments should leave all works and tasks that are not within their specialty to competent departments.
Copies of the performance audit report on “The Construction, relocation and renovation of educational and youth activity centres of the Education and Youth Affairs Bureau” had been delivered to the Chief Executive and to the Legislative Assembly.
