Tourism projects/ Report: The Ministry has paid, but has not studied or monitored the results

The projects that are annually supported with part of the funding from the Ministry of Tourism and Environment have not been clearly defined from the beginning nor planned according to the areas with priority tourism.

A report of the High State Control, after the audit in this institution, has concluded that from the analysis of three years there are repetitions of events while the activities have not been properly monitored to see the fulfillment of the established objectives.

"In 2020 and 2021, the "main purpose of the calls and the themes of the calls" were the same, general and without a defined focus of the needs of tourism. - The Ministry of Tourism and Environment has not developed a study and planning process, according to the priorities that the ministry should have every year, not clearly defining the priority areas for tourism development and the tourist resources for which these projects will be developed and which after that, they will be transformed into tourist products," the report states.

"For the year 2022, from the audit of the application evaluation process, it is found that the Project Selection Committee met with the participation of the members and compiled minutes, where they give the list of beneficiaries and for the disqualified, they state that there is a lack of documentation or requests for funding exceeds 50% of the project value.

In the minutes, there is no explanatory relation regarding the disqualifications, the amount of funding that was requested by the applicant, the documentation that was not submitted, etc. the table has not been argued and clarified project by project what documents are missing and for the winning projects the documentation submitted by the beneficiary has not been cited," the report states.

The auditors note that the Ministry of Tourism and Environment has no periodic monitoring plan with clear objectives on these finalized projects, which has led to the lack of an analysis on the impact these projects have had and have on the development of tourism.

For this, the ministry has been asked to take measures by periodically monitoring in order to make a clear balance on the efficiency of projects that have been financed with public money./ Monitor