The administration of the Uruguayan capital paid more than 500 overtime hours to officials of its casino, even when the gaming room was closed during the pandemic. The complaint will reach the courts.
Uruguay.- A request for access to information made by the local media El País uncovered a case of alleged corruption in Uruguay. According to official data, the 55 officials of the Montevideo Intendancy (IMM) who work at the municipal casino Parque Hotel were paid, in addition to their salaries, overtime hours, even while the casino was closed due to the health emergency caused by Covid-19.
In fact, both in 2020 and 2021, years in which the Parque Hotel casino was largely non-operational or operating at 50 percent of its capacities, its employees were paid a total of UYU 214,256 (USD 5,060) the first year and UYU 284,722 (USD 6,725) the second. A total of 668 overtime hours were paid in 2020 and 798 in 2021.
As explained by the newspaper El País, three days after the Executive Power communicated the health measures adopted on March 13, 2020, the IMM issued a resolution in which it decided to “keep the Casino Parque Hotel closed to the public”. That March, however, 77 overtime hours had already been paid, the same amount that was paid the previous month, when everything was operating normally. In April, overtime hours were paid again, a total of 42, and payments were stopped during May and June, only to resume from July, when 39 were paid.
In August, the government allowed a relaxation of the closures, and the municipal casino, according to Walter Páez, a director of the National Association of State Casino Officials, operated with “40 percent of the machines available”, and without using the so-called table games.
The Parque Hotel then operated under these conditions until December 2, 2020, the date on which it closed its doors until July 15, 2021, as stated in a resolution of the IMM from August 9 of that year, where it is recognized that the activities of this casino were closed “until the month of July of the current year, except for a short period in the second half of 2020”, and that “given the current health situation” it was resolved to reopen it “from July 15, 2021 operating at 50 percent of its capacity”.
See also: ADEP demands an improvement plan for the Parque Hotel Casino room in Montevideo
And in those months the same was confirmed according to the information disclosed by El País: payments of overtime hours that, added together, are more than 500. Because 77 were paid in December 2020, 77 in January 2021 - almost the same amount as in January 2020, when there was no pandemic and 83 hours had been paid -, 43 in the following February, 30 in March, 69 in April, 69 in May, 69 in June and 64 in July, the month in which the casino only operated from the second half.
«We are going to end this lack of respect», opined opposition deputy Martín Lema about the rumors regarding the payments of phantom overtime hours. «What a lack of respect for the people of Montevideo! The feeling of impunity, negligence, and poor management have no limits. Montevideo is chaos and they insist on maintaining a Municipal Casino that causes huge losses and pays overtime when it is closed», he added.
The likely candidate of «the whites» for the mayoralty of the capital went further and stated: «Apart from the disaster of the Casino, I will request detailed information about the USD 10m that the IMM allocated in 2023 for the payment of overtime hours. We are going to end this lack of respect».
It is worth remembering that Lema proposed the closure of the municipal casino, something that sparked the rejection of the Association of Professional Casino Officials (ADEP) and the Association of Administrative Officials of Municipal Casinos (Afacm).
