Costa Rica's San Carlos cites early reforms, but audit leaves procurement compliance unverified

Costa Rica's national audit office has ordered the Municipality of San Carlos to formalise procurement controls after reviewing a sample of purchases made without ordinary competitive tendering in 2024 and 2025. The municipality has separately said it identified problems internally in January 2026 and opened disciplinary proceedings. The two accounts are not necessarily contradictory: announcing corrective action does not establish that every control was implemented or that the earlier purchases were properly documented.

The Contraloría General de la República's 20 October 2026 report, DFOE-LOC-IAD-00008-2026, identified 211 exceptional procurement procedures with an aggregate awarded value of ₡488 million. It randomly examined 48 files representing ₡103.94 million in awards, plus two separate demand-based arrangements. Auditors said they could not locate market studies or documented price-reasonableness analyses in any of the 48 sampled files. That is a finding about missing documentation, not a finding that the full awarded amount was lost or that suppliers overcharged.

Of 27 sampled sole-provider procedures, 21 lacked the required minimum three-business-day period for checking whether other suppliers could provide the goods or services. Six of the 48 sampled files lacked all four required supplier declarations relating to legal restrictions, while another 28 included only some of them. These gaps make independent checks harder; they do not by themselves establish a prohibited relationship or criminal conduct.

The audit also acknowledged that the municipality had introduced new checklists and declarations in 2026. It nevertheless found that those tools had not been fully incorporated into formal procedures and that circulation by email did not ensure their consistent use. The audit records a municipal explanation that nominal ₡1 and ₡5 amounts in two demand-based arrangements were technical placeholders in the procurement system, rather than actual contract values; the auditors said the practice still did not meet the statutory approach to estimating contracts.

According to a 22 October account by local outlet San Carlos Digital of a statement supplied by the municipality, the local government said an internal study in January prompted directives and disciplinary proceedings, some still pending. The statement did not identify the number of proceedings or provide their individual outcomes. TFNOS has not independently obtained that municipal statement or the underlying disciplinary records, so those claims require direct-document confirmation before publication.

The audit office required formal strategic actions by 29 January 2027, revised control procedures by 31 May and evidence of implementation by 30 June. It also set intermediate milestones. These are prospective compliance dates, not proof of a later failure. The next accountability test is whether the municipality supplies dated policies, the original January internal study, the disciplinary case totals and outcomes, and procurement-system records showing that the controls are actually being applied.

The original audit findings are administrative compliance findings, not a court judgment or finding of fraud. The municipality's response and any later corrective evidence should be assessed against the audit's specific orders.