ENARGAS and Its "Passivity" To Meet the Quality of Service Controls
<p>The agency was created in 1999 about 14 keys to measure the performance of the licensees of distribution and transportation of gas, but a report by the AGN says the system does not meet its objectives because the reference values are outdated, they do not publish results and sanctions procedures can take up to 900 working days.</p>
In 1999, the National Gas Regulatory Body (ENARGAS), created a system to control service licensees distribution and transportation. Evaluations are conducted by 14 indexes to verify the quality of the provision. However, a report from the General Audit Office (AGN, for its acronym in Spanish), concluded that the system "does not meet the objectives of its creation, and the passivity of the body weakens the effectiveness of their actions."
The observation that AGN is based upon its work, 2007, ENARGAS had not yet finished assessing whether providers met the quality indicators during 2004 and 2005. Meanwhile, the entity justified by arguing that, from 2003, there were "shortcomings" in the regulation of gas distribution services requiring their "direct intervention" such as lack of resources and staff's resignation, which did not allow them to meet the attempt to give continuity to its control system.
Compliance indicators should be released each year through the website ENARGAS, ie, not to the evaluation of service to the attention of society, is to "thwart one of the fundamental objectives of the system" of control. But the audits were not officially disclosed. The audit said that "in the absence of publication of the final values of the licensees, users have been prevented from making comparisons between companies." Additionally, ENARGAS had to verify the information that provided the lending themselves to develop quality guides. However, besides being "poor", no audits were checking all the indicators.
The control system was born nine years ago and to establish reference values of the time parameters that were not taken to date, "which affects the efficiency" of the tests, the report says.
"ENARGAS incurs excessive delays in the sanction process for breaches of the indicators," says the AGN, adding that in 2004-2005 14 complaints were handled by irregularities between 2000 and 2004, ten of which were unresolved at the time of the audit: "Overall, the average of the proceedings exceeded 900 working days", it added.