The director of the National Research and Development Agency (ANID), Alejandra Pizarrosent a letter to the Comptroller General of the Republic in which iinforms about the measures that are being adopted after the audit report -from the supervisory body- that detected deficiencies in its financial statements.

Among the shortcomings detected, the supervisory body maintained that the state agency did not manage the collection of 46,197,426,161 pesoswhich correspond to transfers made to public and private entities between 2018 and 2022.

In that sense, the document issued by Pizarro maintains that the «Advanced Human Capital Program» It has been in existence for 35 years and has financed a total of 39 thousand postgraduate students, as stated Ex-Ante.

He adds that, as of 2008, the Chile Scholarships replaced the President of the Republic Scholarships, so their scope was extended, delivering more than 800 scholarships a year.

The office also recognizes that «Since 2015, there was no clear documented process that would allow for consultations with detailed reports of information on the scholarships and the obligations of the beneficiaries».

However, the report assures that today there is a «Scholarship Management Monitoring System» and a service platform, «Help Desk», which records the total interactions between ANID and the beneficiaries.

Likewise, the file maintains that, during this year, a list of beneficiaries has been implemented on the institutional website and a record of the status of scholarship return and compliance with obligations.

THE RESPONSE FROM THE MINISTRY OF SCIENCES

The case affects the Minister of Science, Aisén Etcheverry (Democratic Revolution), who was national director of ANID between January 2020 – when the entity was created – and May 2022, so he had to lead the transfer from the National Commission for Scientific and Technological Research (Conicyt), of which she was executive director between August 2019 and May 2022.

Along these lines, once the ministry was consulted about Minister Etcheverry’s opinion on the Comptroller’s report – which audits part of her period -, They emphasized that the spokesperson is in charge of ANID, which is directed by director Alejandra Pizarro, who was appointed by President Boric in March 2023.

However, ANID assured that the amounts questioned for 46 billion pesos they represent only 2 percent of the transfers carried out by the Agency between 2018 and 2022 (the entity delivers more than 540 billion pesos per year), according to the aforementioned media.

Likewise, the entity stated that the final report of the supervisory body did not include the progress made during the past year, in which – according to the Agency – «regularized» about 80 percent of the aforementioned observations.