The AGN Has Disclaimed an Opinion on the Financial Statements of the Belgrano Railroad Since 1996
<p style="line-height: 20.7999992370605px;"><span style="line-height: 1.6em;">It is the repetition of the "uncertainties" that emerged after analyzing the balance sheets of the concession. The latest financial audits show there is missing inventory of the assets transferred to the company, and documents showing efforts to pay off liabilities. The work of the Ministry of Planning has yet to be analyzed. This is a special report from The Auditor.info. </span></p> <div> </div>
Between 1996 and 2009, the Auditor General's Office (AGN, for its acronym in Spanish) made nine financial reports on the financial statements of the company Ferrocarril General Belgrano SA (EFGBSA), and every case they arrived at the same conclusion: a disclaimer of opinion. It is because of the uncertainty caused by "several issues" identified during the investigation; the watchdog could not assess the reasonableness of the balances recorded in the concessionaire while they exploited the service until 2008.
The last four reports approved between 2006 and 2009, agreed that the company had no current physical inventories, nor did they give an account of the things which were transferred from the Federal Government at the time of privatization in 1993. In addition, when the service went from Ferrocarriles Argentinos to become EFGBSA a "balance transfer" was not executed.
The AGN also highlighted the lack of documentation showing whether the concessionaire undertook efforts to recover assets and settle liabilities. That fact, coupled with "the delays and inconsistencies in the information provided" by EFGBSA led the watchdog to state a "low level of confidence in the accounting systems and administrative channels."
The Audits also speak of "longstanding weaknesses that reflect the lack of standards and procedures to ensure the reliability of information" established, for example, in the accounting ledgers, which did not tally with the balances reported in the financial statements submitted by the company, "and the respective reconciliations were not performed.”
Also during the private management the company did not conduct the necessary analysis to "determine the recoverability of amounts recorded in the financial statements" in loans. Moreover, the documentation that supported the balance of the allowance for trial "lacked sufficient analytical information" to establish the integrity of the litigation portfolio and also served to determine how much money was spent on lawsuits, which were computed without the corresponding update.
The train was given to the company by a 1993 decree. Six years later, the State presented the operation of the service loads precisely for Belgrano Cargo SA for a period of 30 years, renewable for another decade. In 2000, the EFGBSA was operated at first for three months, to take a survey of the inventory assets and liquidate the firm. But a year later, the settlement was suspended; the intervention was extended and the concessionaire was assigned to a new venture: Workshop reopen Tafi Viejo, Tucuman.
Beyond the fact that throughout this process no surveys or inventories values were performed, the audit raised "uncertainties" over cash disbursements made for the Tucuman project on the balance sheet. It is $ 1,263,817.9 in the "intangibles" and $ 2,079,352.52 in the "loans" field.
In addition, between 2005 and 2007, the EFGBSA absorbed about 1,200 workers who were transferred from the Roca and the Belgrano Sur line.
The Audit approved the final work on the company on July 7th of this year, in which it analyzed the balance sheet registered until December 31st 2006. By then, the EFGBSA had lost their own economic and financial capacity, because since the end of its operation in 1999 it had depended on the contributions of the National Treasury for the payment of salaries and there were no expenditures for capital goods.
In numbers, on December 31st, 2006, the Belgrano had accumulated losses of for $1,013,078,290.20, and a net worth of $ 802,147,710.03. Thus, the firm was included in the conditions for mandatory reduction of capital, as established by the Law of Commercial Corporations: 19,550.
In 2008, and by decree, the termination process of the concession contract with the company was started and instructed the Ministry of Federal Planning to allocate two government companies: Railway Infrastructure and Railway Operator, the administration necessary for service goods. Since then, no audits of the financial statements of the railroad have been performed.