Con la tuya, contribuyente · Investigations
Where your money went
Open-data investigations into Uruguayan state spending. Each starts from a number in the state procurement system, is verified against the official source, and ends with something anyone can re-check. No bias, with links.
Where the money is argued over
Short files on state investments and spending under question — by an audit body, by the courts, by parliament, or by works that never appeared — each with its sources and with the cross-reference against the official data where one exists.
State Casinos
The Directorate of Casinos (Ministry of Economy) runs the state gambling monopoly: four casinos and ~30 halls. It is profitable — USD 65 M in 2024 — which is exactly why its spending deserves oversight. These investigations follow its contracting rubro by rubro.
The full investigation
State Casinos: all the spending
11,630 contracts since 2002. What it buys, from whom, and how: mostly direct contracting, with public tender the rarity. The full map of the agency.
Art. 79764 · deep-dive
Courtesy consumption
Nearly 59 million pesos of food and drink comped to gamblers, awarded as “exclusive supplier”… to 22 different suppliers. One bills 4× the rest, unchanged for years.
Departmental governments
Departmental governments handle a huge share of public spending and report unevenly. These investigations look at where their money goes, starting with the biggest: Montevideo, in its worst deficit in a decade.
Departmental governments
Montevideo in the red: the discretionary spend
In 2024 the city posted its biggest deficit in ten years (USD 82.6 M) and kept paying for advertising, shows, catering and merchandising. The discretionary spend, contract by contract.
Intendencia de Montevideo
TV Ciudad: what the municipal channel costs
The city’s TV channel costs between USD 8 and 10 million a year, yet barely shows up in procurement: it’s budget-funded. What does get recorded, plus the budget, the advertising, the NBA deal and the cuts.
Own investigation · Soriano 2021-2026
The repair shops the public record cannot see
A council information request measured $207 million spent on private repair shops, and one truck that entered the same shop 96 times. None of it is in the state procurement record: the Soriano departmental government publishes calls and never publishes awards.
Flagged companies
We start from companies flagged by the press and the courts for corruption or irregularities with the State, and cross them against the data to see whether the flag leaves a trace in the open records. Some appear in full; the biggest barely show up.
The catalog
Does the data confirm it?
Over 25 companies flagged for corruption with the State, cross-checked one by one against State procurement. Which are verifiable in the data, which fall outside its scope and why. Each case with its legal status and its source.
Health · ASSE
ITHG: 5 records for US$20 million
A “maritime supplier” concentrated 96% of ASSE’s transfers by direct purchase. The data shows $33 M; the audit and the Tribunal de Cuentas, over $2,000 M. The invisibility of direct spending, measured.
Defense · Armed forces
Saturno: the barracks’ meat
283 contracts for $1,140 M with INDA and all three forces. In the Navy, a 57-tonne shortfall of pork ended up with the Economic Crimes Prosecutor.
Series · Refreshed every Monday
Spending on gender and diversity policy
The feed does not label the subject: it is rebuilt from each contract text. Three things surface: the measurable spend is small, almost all of it is victim support, and 8 in 10 contracts carry no amount.
Own investigation · Monopolies
State monopolies, from both sides of the counter
Nine state companies with a legal monopoly billed the rest of the state 32,983 million pesos. As buyers they awarded 734,993 million: twenty-two times more, and that is where competition is possible.
Our own findings
What we found ourselves
Things that came out of measuring the procurement record and were in no news story. Each one states which law it would engage, what is missing before it can be asserted, and who has to answer.
Own investigation · Public records
The data center that is not in state procurement
We searched for the largest construction under way in Canelones across 2.18 million procurement records. It is not there: not the company, not the park, not the road. The trail is in the Official Gazette and the environmental file.
Own investigation · Bidders
The tender looked competitive
In 852 of the 4,372 competitive purchases we could inspect, exactly one company bid. In another 24, two of the firms bidding against each other share a phone number or the address they filed with the State.
Own investigation · Outsourcing
"The Antel crew": who installs the fibre and what they charge
The crew works for a contractor: it is in the tender documents. The price in the saying does not add up. And of 164 network-works tenders, exactly one says who builds the network.
Series · SICE catalogue
What the State buys when it buys words
Across 84,011 catalogue articles there is no code for a curriculum or a school textbook: the State cannot buy an idea. It does buy the vehicle — advertising, printing, courses, books — for 11,000 million.
Series · Media and official advertising
The private channels: how much of their income is State advertising
Channel 12 lost $150 million in 2025. Montevideo's three channels bill similar figures. The official advertising that leaves a trace never reaches 0.5% of that income, and the rest cannot be followed.
The country in numbers
The one series that does not start at a contract. It starts at a dinner-table argument — "we keep getting worse" — and answers it with official series instead of an opinion, including the ones that prove the pessimism right.
52 official series · 2004-2026
Are we getting worse?
Against 2004, 21 indicators improved and 2 worsened. Against 2014, 10 stalled and 4 worsened — and the ones that worsened are precisely the visible ones. Meanwhile 87% are satisfied with their own life and only 41% think the country is progressing.
Health Ministry 1997-2025 · corpus 2002-2026
Seven purchases against suicide in twenty-four years
Uruguay measures its suicide rate precisely and has published it since 1997. Across 1,639,165 state purchases the word appears seven times. The 2021-2025 National Strategy does not ask for money: it asks for 76 weekly hours.
Own investigation · budget and benefits
The State and suicide: the resources that cannot be added up
No budget line is labelled by the problem. The only suicide target of the whole budget is a prison target, and it does not fall in five years. The person who attempted suicide pays for every psychotherapy session; their relative does not.
VIII Congress document · August 2026
The Frente Amplio document, told by five outlets and measured against three sources
The National Plenary approved 63 pages and the party published them six days later. We measured its text and checked five of its claims: two hold, one is off by 30 million dollars, and two cannot be settled with public data.
Group 9 agreement · 2026-2031
Four hours less: what construction won, and where the bill lands
The working week falls from 44 to 40 hours with no pay cut. The four cost figures that circulated cite no study. The one that can be measured is in the price lines of the largest works contract on record: parametric adjustment plus social contributions are 20.59%.
Law 18.795 · 2011-2026
The housing the state does not buy
The promoted housing regime has 52,713 homes promoted and 30,525 finished, and leaves not one contract in the procurement record. The tax office publishes its cost in five loose lines and no total. The Housing Ministry answered that it could only report VAT.
Published every morning
Daily findings
One measured finding a day from the procurement record: spending jumps, concentrated categories, tenders with a single bid, prices the automatic review could not explain. Each one states what is still missing to say more.
How each one is done
Open data
Starts at the source
Everything comes from state procurement (OCDS, catalogodatos.gub.uy), the same base that powers the site. No numbers without an origin.
Verification
Checked by hand
The procurement method, amount and supplier are confirmed by opening each contract official record. Every strong claim has its link.
No verdict
Flags, does not accuse
Facts are kept apart from open questions. A pattern is not a crime: it points to where to request the file, and includes the agency response.
Next lines
Upstream
The bar concessions
The “exclusivity” defense rests on each hall having a bar concessionaire. The missing question: how, and with what competition, was each concession awarded?
More agencies
The rest of the State
The same method applied to other agencies: where spending concentrates, who wins without competition, and which patterns repeat.