The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) assured El Diario de Hoy that the laptops that the government has been distributing to students of the public education system since Monday are not the ones they bought with public money.
The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) stood out yesterday with the provision of computers by the government of Nayib Bukele this week ahead of Sunday’s elections.
After Education Minister Carla Hananía de Varela said yesterday that the equipment was purchased through the United Nations, the organization’s office came forward with the allegation.
SEE: The United Nations confirms the purchase of 46,422 computers with government money, but the delivery should have taken place after elections
“When I say we didn’t buy it, it’s because we did it through the UN, with GOES funds. Why did we do it this way? For transparency and for all the additional benefits that this brings us, ”said the official via Twitter.
Given the statement by the minister of Varela, El Diario de Hoy contacted the UNDP communications office in El Salvador to ask if the laptops that the government has been supplying since February 22, 6 days before the parliamentary and municipal elections are acquired with the support of the United Nations entity.
The communications agency resolved the doubts, assuring that the computers the government is distributing this week are not the same ones purchased through the entity, as the Education Secretary suggested.
All teams come with preinstalled Google Classroom. They are Dell brand, Hewllet Packard and Lenovo. Photo EDH
The UNDP said in a statement yesterday that it has backed the contracting of “a batch of 46,422 computers worth $ 13,525,049.70, including shipping and insurance costs, funded with funds from the government of El Salvador.”
According to United Nations entity data, the cost per computer is $ 291.
But in addition, the UNDP’s response confirmed what it stated in the statement: “The start of staggered delivery in the warehouses of the Department of Education, Science and Technology (will be) the end of March.”
The UNDP letter specifies that this batch of 46,422 computers would be delivered “in a staggered fashion from the last week of March 2021,” and not just the week before the elections, where the government has a split policy for these deliveries in the face of the population.
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Since Monday, the government has been supplying computers to students of the public education network following the press conference attended by President Nayib Bukele; the Minister of Education, Carla Hananía de Varela; and the Minister of Innovation, Vladimir Hándal.
Although students, teachers, parents and teacher unions have expressed positive supply of the computers, officials are required to obey the law.
The electoral law prohibits officials from publishing inaugurations of works of any kind a month before the election so as not to influence the voter’s intention at the last minute, but President Nayib Bukele and officials of his government have sought to overturn that ban. Bypassing the delivery of computers to schools on Sunday evenings and with the “activating” bypass of La Libertad last week, lawyers consulted by El Diario de Hoy have indicated.
The government has announced that it will supply the first computers to students in the public sector. Photo: Twitter / @nayibbukele
“During the thirty days prior to the date of the elections, neither the government of the republic nor the municipal councils and other autonomous entities in private or state media may carry out the recruitment, inauguration of national infrastructure works or other nature that they have carried out. whether they intend to carry out in accordance with the service or emergency services to which the state is obliged, ”states Article 178 of the Elections Code.
In his speech on the delivery of laptops to students, President Bukele said the government has invested $ 450 million in the purchase of this technological equipment, despite the fact that Minister Hananía de Varela had said in the past that the computers would reach the country by donation from the United Nations.
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On February 9, the minister announced they were waiting for a batch of 150,000 computers purchased by the UN to be delivered to students in the second half of February.
“We didn’t buy the computers, the United Nations bought them,” Hananía de Varela said on the occasion. Although he also added that these were acquired with government funds corresponding to the year 2020.
The official data provided by the government states that there will be 1.2 million computers, which will be distributed to a similar number of students across the country, including about 53,000 people who make up the public network’s teaching staff.
As announced by the Minister of Education, the first students to receive the computers will be the second and third grade of the secondary school. Likewise, Minister Hándal said they will give them a tablet from early childhood to fourth grade and a computer from fourth grade to high school.
The UN body adds in its statement that “the procurement process was conducted in accordance with UNDP policies and procurement procedures, ensuring the principles of: good value for money; impartiality, effective competition, integrity and transparency ”.
The government can exceptionally make use of purchase brokers
On the other hand, the Law of Acquisitions and Contracts of the Public Administration (Lacap) provides in Article 20 that the government may exceptionally call upon agents outside the government, such as in this case the UNDP, to make purchases when none of the state institutions can do it, after internal consultation with their Institutional Procurement and Contracting Units (UACI).
“Where the institution does not have specialized or qualified personnel in the matter in question, it will request the cooperation of government officials from other state institutions, who will be required to cooperate and, exceptionally, specialists may be hired,” says one of the sub-divisions. of Article 20.
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Expert public administration attorneys, consulted by El Diario de Hoy, explained that in this computer purchase made by the UNDP, it is acting as a purchasing agent or intermediary between the equipment supplier and the government.
However, the executive has failed to explain what the ‘exceptionalness’ would be in this purchase of the 46,422 computers from the United Nations entity and as the UNDP is breaking away from the supply in the run-up to the election, it raises other questions: from whom did it buy the laptops you distribute and what mode did you download? How many have been bought so far and how much are the costs so far?
The expenditure the government says it has made on computers is $ 450 million, which compared to the 2021 budget for the Department of Education, which is $ 1,320.4 million, indicates that only half of what would be spent on computers budgeted for the year. and about $ 448 million would be available for the other parts of the education sector.
