Some Employees of Mexican Anti-Corruption Agency Spend Lavishly on Trips Elinor Comlay - Reuters
go to original February 21, 2016

SFP head Virgilio Andrade (EE)

Mexico's Public Administration Ministry (SFP), charged with oversight and accountability in government, is responsible for reining in spending and tackling corruption. But it admits it has little idea how its own employees spend public money abroad, an examination by Reuters shows.

The SFP has only paper records of its employees' travel and government rules only require boarding passes and hotel receipts as verification. This means a large chunk of employees' per diem spending goes unchecked.

The ministry's finance department could not answer Reuters' questions on how many employees traveled last year, for how long and how much they spent. Instead, it handed over about 1,000 pages of paper files in cardboard boxes to review.

"We are reviewing this to make sure best practices are applied to this kind of spending," SFP head Virgilio Andrade told Reuters when asked whether officials should provide more details of how they spend government money abroad.

A new transparency law, approved last year, will mean government agencies and entities have to electronically publish their travel spending, Andrade said.

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