MAIN CONCEPTUAL AND METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES

These Public Accounts have been prepared according to the requirements of Law # 24,156 of Financial Administration and Control Systems of the National Public Sector and its modifications and supplementary regulations, and the contents of Law # 27,198 of the General Budget of the National Administration for Fiscal Year 2016.

The new structure of the National Public Administration under Decree 13/2015, amending the Law of Ministries, is made clear in the budget execution of fiscal year 2016.

The regulation mentioned above reorganizes the ministries according to the new goals, new bodies are created and jurisdictions are changed. Thus, the organigrams of their centralized and decentralized administrations are changed through several supplementary measures and amendments to said decree.

As a consequence of the jurisdiction transfer from the former Ministry of Economy and Public Finance, its name was changed to Ministry of the Treasury and Public Finance, and the former Ministry of Industry is now the Ministry of Production. Also, a new name was given to the Ministry of Agroindustry, now the Ministry of Agriculture, Cattle and Fishing Issues having the level of a Secretariat under the new body.

The Ministry of Energy and Mining is created with the purpose of enhancing the planning, development and implementation of energy and mining policies, undertaking the roles of the former Secretariat of Energy and Mining and decentralized bodies of the former Ministry of Federal Planning, Public Investment and Services. Thus, the following bodies are now under the new Ministry: 105 – National Committee of Atomic Energy, 624 – Argentine Geology and Mining Service, 651 – Gas National Ruling Body and 652 – National Electricity Ruling Body. Also, the following Public Business Companies are transferred: DIOXITEK S.A., Energía Argentina S.A. (ENARSA), Nucleoeléctrica Argentina S.A., Emprendimientos Energéticos Binacionales S.A. (EBISA), Yacimientos Carboníferos Río Turbio, Yacimientos Mineros Agua de Dionisio (YMAD) and the following Trust Funds: for the Electricity Federal Transport, for Subsidies to Residential Use of Gas (Law 25,565) and for Subsidies to Residential Use of Liquid Gas.

On the other hand, the Ministry of Transport is created due to the enhancement of the former Secretariat of Transport with its decentralized bodies under the implementation of measures related to the land, maritime, rivers and air transport, as well as road policies. Thus, the following bodies are now under said Ministry: 203 – National Agency of Road Safety, 661 – National Committee of Transport Regulation, 664 – Ruling Body of the National Airports System, 669 – National Administration of Civil Aviation and 671 – Civil Aviation Accidents Investigation Board. Also, body 604 – National Roads Department from the former Ministry of Federal Planning, Public Investment and Services 56.  The following are transferred to this new Ministry of Public Business Companies: Intercargo S.A., Administración General de Puertos S.E., Ferrocarriles Argentinos S.E., Administración de Infraestructuras Ferroviarias  S.E., Operadora Ferroviaria S.E., Belgrano Cargas y Logística S.E., Administradora de Recursos Humanos Ferroviarios S.A., Empresa Argentina de Navegación Aérea S.E. and the Trust Fund for the Transport Infrastructure System.

In order to give an integrating and federal vision to the policies destined to the public work and housing, the former name of Ministry of Domestic Affairs and Transport is changed to Ministry of Domestic Affairs, Public Work and Housing, transferring the central administration and decentralized bodies dealing with said issues from the former Ministry of Federal Planning, Public Investment and Services and from the Chief of Ministers Office. The bodies transferred are: 656 – Ruling Body of Dams Safety, 108 – National Waters Institute, 612 – National Assessment Committee and 613 – National Body of Waters Cleaning. Also, the following are transferred to this ministry: Agua y Saneamiento Argentinos S.A. (AYSA) and the Federal Trust Fund for the Regional and Waters Infrastructure.

The Ministry of Modernization is created in order to enhance the policies of public servants and its connection with the new ways of management required by a modern Government, as well as the development of technology applied to the central and decentralized public administration, showing citizens the National Government management, as well as the implementation of projects for provinces and municipalities of information technology policies.

Also, the new Ministry of Environment and Sustainability undertakes the issues under the former Secretariat of Environment and Sustainability which was under the Chief of Ministers Office including its decentralized bodies, also transferring to this new ministry the following: 107 – Administration of National Parks, decentralized body under the Ministry of Tourism.

The Ministry of Communications is created, with the transfer of decentralized bodies 204 – Federal Authority of Audiovisual Communication (AFCA) and 115 – Federal Authority of Information Technology and Communications (AFTIC), which are merged under FAS 207 – National Communications Body.  The following public business companies are transferred to this new jurisdiction:  Correo Oficial de la República Argentina S.A. and Empresa Argentina de Soluciones Satelitales S.A. (AR-SAT).

On the other hand, the Trust Fund of Universal Services is created under the Ministry of Communications (Law 27,078 – Title IV – Chapter II), which is aimed at the extension of Information Technology and Communications services (TIC) to those areas not covered by and/or groups of clients in need who due to their social, physical, economic or other characteristics, have limitations to the access of said services regardless of their geographic location. The objective is to grant the access to information and communications to everyone in the country, with the highest quality standards.

Also, all the issues related to sports of any type are transferred from the Ministry of Social Welfare to the Ministry of Education and Sports.

On the other hand, body 118 – National Institute of Aborigine Issues under the Ministry of Social Welfare is transferred to the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights.

To that respect, the Ministry of Science, Technology and Productive Innovation receives body 106 – National Committee of Space Activities and the public business company Veng S.A. which were under the former Ministry of Planning, Public Investment and Services.

Law 27,267, issued on July 13, 2016, changes the name of Body 902 National Centre of Social Reeducation to National Hospital of Mental Health and Addictions Lic. Laura Bonaparte.

In relation to Public Entities expressly excluded from the National Administration, Law 26,801 created the National Institute of Music (INAMU) within the Ministry of Culture, in order to promote and preserve the activities connected with music in general and those of national music in particular. Thus, the Program “Promotion of music” was eliminated.

According to Article 4 of Resolution 10/2006 SGN, the Financial Administrative Services complied with the disclosure to the National Accounting Office of the accounting certifications for their own Internal Audit Units and those connected with the information of the closing of fiscal year 2016.

It is noted that Decree 561/2016 approved the implementation of the Electronic Documents Management System (GDE) as an integrated system of follow-up and registration of the movements of all the files of the National Public Sector. Resolution 65/2016 of the Ministry of Modernization ruled it is obligatory to use the Official Communications modules (CCOO), Electronic Files (EE) and Official Electronic Documents Issuer (GEDO) in the Ministry of Treasury and Public Finance.

Thus, the National Accounting Office issued Regulation 1/2017 which sets the rules for the disclosure at closing of fiscal year 2016 for entities with GDE implemented, especially the Electronic Files, and for those which do not have GDE, in which case the Filing Office of the Ministry of Treasury is responsible for the issuance of the Electronic Files, scanning the documents disclosed by the entities.

Also, the process of implementation was continued in the new Financial Administrative Services for the Modules Purchases and Hiring of the SLU developed by the Secretariat of Treasury.

Following the same, the National Accounting Office took part in said process, assisting in the implementation of the system.

This task, also undertaken by the rest of the Ruling Bodies, not only included understanding the peculiarities of the bodies getting the SLU, but also the specification of the requirements needed to enhance the operations of the system and incorporating new services.

It is noted that during Fiscal Year 2016, the SLU was implemented in FAS 207 – National Communications Board, FAS 327 – Ministry of Transport, FAS 328 – Ministry of Energy and Mining, FAS 329 – Ministry of Communications, FAS 347 – Federal System of Media and Public Contents, and FAS 366 – Ministry of Modernization, in relation to Purchase and Hiring Module.

As of December 31, 2016, the system was operational in 123 FASs, 57 of which are under the Central Administration and 66 are Decentralized Bodies.

The project related to the e-SIDIF continued to be developed, which involved the technological and operational update of the SIDIF, with the purpose of a single product capable of covering the management and information needs of the Ruling Bodies and the FASs, and the use of Internet technology and free software tools to reduce the development and implementation costs. The documents connected with the operational definitions, activity diagrams and users interface prototypes were used as an operating asset for the elaboration of the new information system.

The National Accounting Office remained an active part of said project.

During fiscal year 2016, the following deployments were undertaken: “FOP – Entities MP/PE – MAPyJ and VEP” in 6 bodies; “ROP” in 18 bodies; “Signatures Registry PTF” in 23 bodies; “Expenses and Revolving Funds” in 23 bodies;  “UD” in 13 bodies; “OD Accounting” in 12 bodies; “Resources and Bank clearing” in 20 bodies; “Payments” in 6 bodies;  “e-Revenue (SAFs 602, 334 y 670)” in 3 bodies and “Purchase” in 15 bodies.

During this fiscal year there was a joint work undertaken by the Ruling Bodies and the DGSIAF of the Ministry of Treasury in relation to the connection with the e-SIDIF of the following systems: Compr.AR, Contrat.AR, Works and Services, Assistance Management and Transfers, developed by the Ministry of Modernization.

In relation to the Accounting System, a greater detail of the Accounts List for the FASs resulted in an improvement of the matrixes connected with the Budget to improve the automatic registration of transactions of the National Administration.

In relation to multi monetary accounting, it is noted that the management receipts backing up and giving origin to the accounting registrations have the information related to the transaction exchange of origin and if the same is different from the official exchange, the original amount is shown together with the exchange rate of said transaction. In this way, it is possible to obtain multi monetary information.

On the other hand, automatized bank reconciliation facilitated the information contrast tasks between bank extracts and accounting registrations made, thus having an adequate registration of cash and cash equivalents as well as the adjustments needed at a certain moment.

It is important to mention that the e-SIDIF has modern data warehousing tools for the use of information, Business Intelligence (BI). This tool provides the accounting majors, Balance Sheets and other data output either for the elaboration of the equity statements disclosed in the Financial Statements, or the Statement of the Treasury, as well as any other output helping the data analysis tasks within the e-SIDIF. From the production data base, several datamarts or groups of data are generated from which the lists, reports and other output of information are elaborated.

During Fiscal Year 2016, the following BI deployments have been undertaken in the Financial Administrative Services under the Central Administration and Decentralized Bodies.

Supplementary, there was a development and enhancement of the applications used by this Accounting Office for the elaboration and consistency control of the Financial Statements, Balance Sheet and Tables.

With the purpose of anticipating to problems and inconsistencies for the fiscal year as a whole, Disposition 10/16 set the guidelines connected to the information to be disclosed to this Accounting Office, as of June 30, 2016, by National Universities, Public Business Companies, Public Entities and Trust Funds.

This requirement resulted in timely information affecting the accounts of the National Public Sector for the first semester, and also helped in the elaboration of the Public Accounts, as it helped in the analysis and adjustments to be made to the accounting and financial registration.

In order to improve the certainty and reliability of the term information provided by the Secretariat of the Treasury, it was necessary to reduce to a minimum the adjustments made at closing of each fiscal year, so the same had an exceptional condition.

During Fiscal Year 2016, tasks were continued in order to adequate the normal management of the General Filing Office of Financial Documents of the National Administration to the requirements of IRAM-ISO 9001:2008 standards; and significant improvement was achieved in the productive systems and thus an increase in the operator productivity.

This has been achieved through the systematization of the pilot tests arising from the constant data analysis on the operations of the File. Also, the system has been given a more preventive character as a whole, which allows for an advance detection of products which are not up to the established requirements and thus the operative costs and detention processes have been reduced.

It is to be noted that in September an audit was made to the System of Quality Management by the Certifying Body for the services “Documents digitalization and description of the documents received under Disposition 46/98 NAO. Assistance for the System users” under IRAM-ISO 9001:2008 Regulations, process begun in 2006, aimed at the satisfaction of users and permanent enhancement.

Also in the same month, the National Accounting Office and the National Treasury Office faced a maintenance audit for the process “Cancellation of Payment Orders by bank transfers Treasury Payer”, under IRAM Standard ISO9001:2008, which was certified for the first time in October 2009.

On the other hand, during the fiscal year, there was a reassignment of resources and priorities in the management area, incorporating new tasks to optimize the preservation and storage services.

In relation to Real Estate it is important to mention that Decree 1382 dated August 9, 2012, ruled the creation of the Government Real Estate Administration Agency (AABE) and its regulation 2670 dated December 1, 2015, established that the National Registry of Government Real Estate (RENABE) shall integrate the information of the existing files in order to form a single one which complies with the integrity and transparency principles and which contributes to the adequate follow up and control of said assets with a periodic update.

Also, the RENABE shall disclose the location of the real estate with georeferenced data, the domain, registration, surface of land and improvements; preservation situation, occupancy and maintenance; the people responsible for its administration, custody, destiny and use, the characteristics of the buildings and main services, occupancy and use indicators, accounting assessment, amortizations and transactions.

To this respect, the National Accounting Office shall operate with the AABE to enforce Law 24,156, article 91 of Ruling Decree 1344/07.

Also, the analysis of the basic guidelines of the Real Estate Module of the SIENA system is made in order to generate the closing tables of the FASs of the Central Administration, as well as for an integration of said module to the e-SIDIF.

Also, in relation to the Costs System, it should be said that under the PROFIP II-BID AR-L 1127, and under article 87 of Law 24,156, which rules the competence of the National Accounting Office for the development of an administrative system oriented to the cost definition for the public operations, this Body coordinated the training activities related to said system for middle and high rank public servants of the National Administration. To this respect, FOUR (4) theory/practice courses have been given from August to November, 2016.

In relation to the Social Balance, the National Accounting Office performed the analysis of the regulations and national, provincial, municipal and international experiences.

It is important to mention the “III Accounting Offices Jurisdictional Event” celebrated on November 18, 2016, at the former Ministry of Foreign Relations and Cult.

The people responsible for the accounts of the Financial Administrative Services, and working in accounting areas of the same, took part in it. During the event, the topics presented were connected with: “Electronic Documents Management (GDE)”, “Closing of Financial Statements 2016”, “Public Real Estate Administration”, “Disclosure of Real Estate 2016”, and “Jurisdictional Accounting Forum”.

FORO was implemented in order to improve the exchange of experiences connected with common interest, to build and enhance the accounting capacities, budget execution and financial administration, either for the FASs or the members of the National Accounting Office.

Also, the Congress of National Accounting Offices was organized together with the National Accounting Office of the City of Buenos Aires and the NAO of the Province of Buenos Aires.

Lastly, and as the additional Registration Authority of the Ministry of the Treasury (former Ministry of the Treasury and Public Finance) under the regulation issued by the National Bureau of Administration and Digital Signature, this Ruling Body continued with the tasks connected with the Digital Signature, validating the identity of those applicants of digital certificates to be used in the e-SIDIF applications, which jurisdictions have not become a Registration Authority.

In relation to the Budget System, we should mention that the National Budget Office, under the control of the Undersecretariat of Budget, made its best to set the proper procedures for the elaboration of the National Budget 2016, under the terms of Law 27.198 and its distribution by Administrative Decision 10 dated January 9, 2016. Also, Resolution 104/2016 of the Secretary of the Treasury completed the information of said Administrative Decision, including the Budget Policies of the Jurisdictions and Entities, Description of the Programs and Physical Production foreseen for year 2016.

To such end, the budget formulation process was made together with the specialized areas of the former Ministry of Economy and Public Finance, which are traditionally part of the Budget Formulation Support Group (GAEP). The creation of the GAEP is based on Article 24 of Law 24.156 of Financial Administration and its regulations, and thus, its formation is annual by Resolution of the Ministry of Treasury, and also includes the budget formulation chronogram and the determination of tasks to be performed by each member of the GAEP and the jurisdictions and entities of the National Administration.

The formulation of the National Budget for year 2016 was made under Resolution 172 of the former Ministry of Economy and Public Finance, dated May 11, 2016. Under the budget formulation program set by said Resolution, the National Budget Office enforced Disposition ONP 56/2016 which approved the “Manual for the Budget Formulation of the National Administration 2017-2019, which was made known by Internet so that the jurisdictions and entities could program their budget for said period.

By Disposition ONP 123, dated April 21, 2014, the forms which are part firstly of the Preliminary Budget and secondly of the Budget Drafts of the Jurisdictions and Entities, as well as the supplementary information documents, are digitally signed and communicated to the National Budget Office using the “e-SIDIF-FOP” application. This process was successful and helped with the elimination of paperwork for a great amount of information generated in the complete process of budget formulation, as well as being a tool for the electronic file of back up documents.

Based on the chronogram aforementioned and for the sixth consecutive year, the budget formulation for fiscal year 2016 was initiated with the elaboration of the Preliminary Budget by the jurisdictions and entities of the National Administration, under the instructions given by Budget Office Regulation 2/2009. The Preliminary Budget had an impact in the elaboration of the National Budget for year 2016, promoting a greater involvement of the executing units in the budget programming process and also, in the elaboration of the financial limits or “budget tops” applied in the preparation of the corresponding budget drafts of the jurisdictions and entities.

From the systems point of view, the elaboration of the Preliminary Budget was integrated as a previous step to the Budget Drafts through the application of the e-FOP module of the e-SIDIF system, and thus, almost all the jurisdictions and entities of the National Administration gave the ruling body their preliminary budget program as back up information for the set-up of budget tops.

On the other hand, the “Manual for the Budget Formulation of Public Companies”, approved by Disposition 158/2011 of the National Budget Office, was still in force for the Budget Formulation for 2016 of said bodies.

Also, tasks were undertaken for the incorporation of results indicators to the Physical and Financial Follow-up System of the National Budget, adding said elements to the physical objectives of several programs part of the National Public Administration and which follow policies of public works, art and culture, health, science and technology, penitentiary, agriculture, among others. Said results indicators are disclosed in the reports of Annex II of the Financial Accounts of Budget Management in the Jurisdictions and Entities of the NPA. Also, they will be disclosed in the Physical Financial Execution Table of the programs part of the National Budget.

In relation to the coordination of the budget execution for fiscal year 2016, the tasks related to budget modifications, execution programming of the budget and its evaluation, were performed under the regulations of Law 27.198 of the General Budget of the National Administration for year 2016 and its distribution through Administrative Decision 10/2016, as mentioned before.

It is to be mentioned that the budget execution of resources and expenses of the National Budget 2016 was made under the budget classifications for the National Public Sector approved by the Resolution 388 of the Secretariat of Finance, dated December 6, 2013, published in the 6th edition of the “Budget Classifications Manual for the National Public Sector” and made public by Internet, updated by the modifications in the institutional structure of the same as explained in the annex.

In relation to the Treasury System, under the electronic government framework, and with the purpose of enhancing the Government management, the Secretariat of Finance of the former Ministry of Treasury and Public Finance, has developed a new collection method for “Non Tax” resources named e-Recauda. This tool, implemented by Resolution 318/15 SH, is a method of resources collection instrumented by the access to a Single Site of Resources of the Public Administration, for the different Ministries and Bodies part of it, by which a debtor o a National Government Body will be able to comply with a non-tax obligation.

The site was opened in January 2016 for the National Treasury Office, for those obligations to be registered in the Current Account 2510/46 “National Treasury Office Collection”. Later, other bodies of the National Administration were incorporated to the collecting bodies list in the accounts they required, under the chronogram and procedure stated in Disposition 22/16 TGN.

During fiscal year 2016, the implementation continued for the Payment Management, Revolving Funds, Tickets and Allowances and Term Financial Programming Modules, reaching 89 bodies, a 76% of the total. On the other hand, the implementation of the modules of Resources and Bank Reconciliation reached 79 bodies, a 68% of the total. Also, the implementation of the elimination of paperwork in the information management on beneficiaries and clients was finished in all the bodies. Together with the operational enhancement of the Integrated System of Financial Information, Regulation 8/16 TGN ruled new ways of payments management involving Judiciary Estate Holding Measurements, for a better control and elimination of management paperwork.

Regulation 6/16 TGN issued the codes to be used to name files in the ELECTRONIC FILES (EE) module of the GDE system, in order to help the implementation of the GDE as an integrated system for the classification and follow-up of the movements of every action and file of the National Public Sector.

In relation to Salaries and Work of the Public Sector, during 2016 the National Bureau has taken part in the development of Workers Agreements undertaken by areas, under dispositions of Law 24,185 and the Collective Labour Agreement homologated by Decree 214/06, as well as under Law 14,250.

Several measures connected with work and salaries have been projected, which are strictly linked to the development of a global economic policy and the levels of expenses of the current budget.

The National Department has taken part in the interjurisdictional bodies, such as:  Comisión Técnica Asesora de Política Salarial del Sector Público y convencionales como el Fondo Permanente de Capacitación y Recalificación Laboral (FOPECAP), la Comisión Permanente de Aplicación y Relaciones Laborales (CoPAR), la Comisión de Igualdad de Oportunidades y de Trato (CIOT), la Comisión de Condiciones y Medio Ambiente del Trabajo (CyMAT) y la Comisión Permanente de Interpretación y Carrera (CoPIC) of every homologated Labour Agreement and its corresponding jurisdictions.

On the other hand, the administration of the SIRHU and PROA was performed in order to take care of the requirements of occupational and salary related information of internal and external users.

Tasks were developed in relation to the information about employment and salaries under the agreement of the Ministry of the Treasury with the SISTYS, as well as the agreements with the INDEC, connected with the National Accounts for Employment, Expenses on Staff and Average Expenses on Staff. Also, a chapter was elaborated on “Employment and Salaries in the Public Sector”, of the quarterly publication of the Fiscal Bulletin of the Secretariat of Treasury.

Requirements of information have been answered on employment and salaries of the employees of the National Executive Branch of public and not governmental bodies, and the elaboration of the salaries police instrumented by the National Government during 2016 was supported.

The implementation of projects connected with the strategic plan of the Budget Department has continued, such as Employment and Salaries Audit, Revision of Payment Systems of the Higher Authorities of the National Executive Branch, Salaries and Employment Indicators, a documents management system aimed at the digitalization of existing and current documents of the Technical Advisory Committee of Salaries Policies of the Public Sector, helping the elimination of paperwork policy of the Secretariat of Finance, among others, as well as the revision of the processes and enhancement of the same, with the corresponding technological update.