Buenos Aires Herald - 01/10/2013
Nota - Argentina - Pag. 5 [noticia en diferido]

USES SYSTEM AGAINST MACRI

One of Buenos Aires City Mayor Mauricio Macri’s key talking points for his PRO party election campaign has suddenly turned against him following a financial report over the Metrobus transport system inaugurated just days before the primary elections which showed alleged overpayments.
Yesterday, opposition politicians were quick to take advantage of the City project’s financial irregularities as political fodder against Macri.
Victory Front (FpV) lead senatorial candidate in the City Daniel Filmus called for a “thorough investigation.”
“Cities should be constructed for those most in need, not for those with the most power,” Filmus said.
FpV City lawmaker candidate Jorge Taiana agreed with his colleague and said that Macri’s administration of public funds for the Metrobus project was a scandal.
“It’s really surprising that a project budgeted at 115 million pesos ends up being 195 million. The city government’s explanations are ridiculous,” Taiana said.
His statements referenced a report based on City government financial figures originally published on Sunday by conservative newspaper La Nación, which explained that the 26-kilometer long Metrobus system required a total 418 million peso investment — 200 million pesos above the value initially estimated in the projected budgets.
Meanwhile, the three kilometres of the “Metrobus 9 de Julio” — the part that went along the wide avenue in which the Obelisco is located — that was tendered to the Riva company for 115 million pesos, ended up costing 196 million — 70 percent more than originally stipulated.

Buenos Aires City Auditor Eduardo Epszteyn considered the project’s overpayments to be an “outrage” and “very messy” in regards to how the contracts were administered by the PRO administration.

Herald with DyN, Télam