Senator Lilian Samaniego has defended maintaining the Board of Directors of Paraguay's social security institution, the Instituto de Previsión Social (IPS), amid the debate over a potential reform of the Paraguayan social security system. In recent statements, the lawmaker stated that the institution needs structural changes to improve services for its members, but that the solution does not lie in abolishing the collegiate body.
“I know the IPS. I was an employee there for 14 years. The IPS needs a profound reform, but not the disappearance of the IPS Board,” declared Samaniego. For her, the central problem is not the board's existence, but rather the way its members are chosen. “We must know how to elect our representatives, and the representatives must fulfill their role of truly representing the people who elected them,” she added.
The senator also highlighted the critical situation at the IPS Central Hospital, whose high demand requires urgent measures. “It is urgently necessary to relieve the pressure on the Central Hospital. Other hospitals must be built. All those surrounding plots of land belong to the IPS. What I don't understand is why they aren't building,” she questioned.
Simultaneously, an internal audit at the IPS has reignited the controversy surrounding the trust agreement established with Banco Atlas. According to documents and testimonies from former social security employees, the inspection report was allegedly dismantled point by point by the institution's own managers. Former managers stated that all actions were executed by order of the Board of Directors, the highest authority of the IPS, without any interference from the bank. The audit, however, maintained its observations but backtracked by admitting that "in no line did the internal audit mention the existence of patrimonial damage."
The defenses presented by former employees, such as former Administration and Finance Manager Rolando Coronel, maintain that “all management actions were carried out in accordance with the Resolutions of the Board of Directors and the norms established by law 1535/99.” Despite the forcefulness of these arguments, the audit reportedly chose to ignore them and forced the application of a legal article that alleged the bank “had to advise and guide the IPS on best practices.”