GORE RM to be summoned again for $55 million audit annulled by Public Procurement Court

The Government Regional Metropolitan (GORE) will be summoned again before the Commission of Management Control and Oversight of the Regional Council on August 24, following its representatives' failure to address the status of an external audit worth $55 million, which was later annulled by the Public Procurement Court. The summons aims to clarify the current state of the financial statement audit conducted by GORE for the years 2021 through 2024. This follows the court's ruling that declared the contract awarded to Surlatina Auditores Limitada illegal and arbitrary. In a previous session of the oversight commission, GORE officials participated and addressed two other agenda items but did not provide information regarding the progress of the audit. The call for information includes details on the level of execution of the contract, products committed and delivered, payments made, administrative actions taken, and measures related to the continuation or termination of the process. Commission head Sergio Morales emphasized that the purpose of the summons was not to revisit the court’s decision but to determine the current status of the audit. He stated, “We are calling the executive to learn something basic such as the current state of the audit. We are not calling them to discuss the verdict, but to know how much has advanced, what has been delivered, and where it stands.” Morales added that while the executive participated in the commission and addressed the other two points on the agenda, they failed to cover the audit point. “Instead of clearing up doubts, we now have more questions than answers,” he noted. The controversy originated from a tender process aimed at conducting an external audit of GORE’s financial statements for the fiscal years 2021 to 2024. The contract was awarded on June 19, 2025, to Surlatina Auditores Limitada for $55 million. Another bidder, Fortunato y Asociados Limitada, challenged the process before the Public Procurement Court. The dispute centered around the technical documentation submitted by the winning company. The tender guidelines required essential documents to be available at the time of bid opening. Surlatina submitted Annex N°5, part of its technical proposal, but omitted files containing the proposed methodology and the Gantt Chart. The bidding process took place on May 26, 2025. On June 9, GORE requested via a reverse forum that Surlatina incorporate these documents, which the company did the same day. GORE defended the action as a “formal error,” arguing that the files had been created prior to the bid deadline and did not directly affect the scoring. However, the court rejected this interpretation. It determined that the methodology and Gantt Chart were integral parts of the technical proposal and could not be added after the process had begun. In its ruling dated May 29, 2026, the court concluded that allowing Surlatina to complete its technical offer post-bidding constituted an undue privilege that invalidated the procedure. Consequently, it declared the award illegal and void. Morales highlighted that this precedent compels the government to take further steps in addressing the audit situation.