The Municipality of Las Condes is under the scrutiny of the Public Ministry due to the exorbitant payment of more than $8 billion in overtime during the last year. This revelation has triggered a series of both criminal and administrative investigations that aim to clarify possible irregularities in the registration and authorization of these additional hours.
The situation worsens with the recent opinion issued by the Comptroller’s Office, which urges Mayor Daniela Peñaloza (UDI) to implement a more rigorous attendance control mechanism to avoid errors in the registration of overtime.
In the Comptroller’s document recorded by Third, the current registration system is questioned, classifying it as “fallible” and subject to possible distortions that compromise the integrity of the data. In this sense, the need to adopt systems that guarantee the certainty and reliability of the registered information is emphasized.
The ruling comes amid the commotion over the tragic death of the municipal treasurer, Juan Andrés Peña, who was found dead in the municipality’s facilities. Peña, who was under the scrutiny of the Prosecutor’s Office for alleged corruption crimes, collected more than $34 million in overtime whose legitimacy is in question.
According to the aforementioned media, the request to implement a new attendance control system was made by the Peñaloza administration after differences with the head of Control, Eduardo López, over the interpretation of current regulations. The controlling body, in its opinion, leaves the determination of the registration mechanism in the hands of the mayor, underlining the need to comply with the legal limit of 40 overtime hours per official per month, except in exceptional, duly justified cases.