The Government officially appointed María Julia Cordero as head of the ANAC

Maria Julia Cordero was made official this Wednesday at the head of the National Civil Aviation Administration (ANAC) for him Governmentposition in which until now she had been working as an auditor. The decision will be regulated by publishing the decree in the Official Gazette.

This measure is dictated taking into account that “the intervention of the ANAC, a decentralized body acting within the scope of the Transportation Secretariat of the Ministry of Economy, was ordered. for a period of 180 calendar days and Dr. María Julia Cordero was appointed intervener“.

Under this framework, Cordero “was entrusted with a series of actions aimed at surveying the state of the situation and promoting a functional reorganization that allows the adequate fulfillment of the institutional mission of the aforementioned organization”.

“Given that in the aforementioned term the intervention has completely fulfilled all the assigned objectivesthrough the regularization and systematization of the functions of the ANAC, its extension is not considered necessary”, therefore “The appointment of Dr. María Julia Cordero to the position of National Administrator of the ANAC is encouraged”continues.

The resolution reaches port one day before the intervention deadline expiredand a week before the arrival of an ICAO mission within the framework of its Universal Safety Audit Program (USOAP)which will be installed at the Jorge Newbery Airport to analyze the changes made and thus evaluate whether the country continues to hold Category 1.

In that sense, the evaluation prior to the arrival of the new administration was unfavorable and questioned the continuity of Category 1with the damages that this would lead to commercial aviation activity in the country, which led to the government’s decision to determine the agency’s intervention to work on correcting the problems and maintaining the current status.

Irregularities from the intervention

Once in charge of the intervention, Cordero detected a series of irregularities after an audit and diagnosis of the situation carried out based on the decision taken in July by the Government to intervene in the organization.

Through a statement, he had detailed that it was revealed “an inadequate and oversized structure of the organismdiscretion in the application of funds and inefficiencies in the use of resources”, and that in addition “a lack of control in processes, bureaucratization in procedures and a lack of management in matters of inspection and provision of services, among others, was detected.” observations that need to be addressed”.

In the report they described that, at the time of the intervention, the ANAC presented a debt of $3,131,700,676inherited from the management of the previous Government, a debt that is being analyzed: “The deficiencies in the administration of resources are expressed mainly in the management of its assets, its fleet being a critical point: the organization has 14 aircraft, valued at in its entirety at approximately one million dollars, which are not used or are on loan. Most of them have not flown for more than 5 years,” he explains. Some of these ships were on loan or neglected at different airports, where they suffered deterioration due to lack of maintenance.

Furthermore, they detailed the lack of maintenance of fire engines and ambulancescompromising airport security; irregular purchases of 350 computers for a total of US$1,225,000, which was later expanded into 122 more computers that cost US$427,000 and that never entered the agency; unjustified rents, such as 84 garages for a fleet of only 18 cars; and the indiscriminate issuance of 600 fuel cards.

Finally, they mentioned an inadequate and oversized structure with 103 hierarchical positions and 68 departments or managements, in addition to the fact that of the 63 properties of the entity, at least 33 were occupied irregularly.

”As a result of these findings, 40 hierarchical positions have already been cut, fuel cards have been canceled without a specific operational assignment, and almost all garages have been returned. As has been said many times, there is no room for waste of public resources.”.