"The concessionaire failed to comply with the Work Schedule presented" stated the Audit General’s Office (AGN) on the company Terminal of Buenos Aires SA (TEBA, for its acronym in Spanish), which since 1993 works in the Retiro station bus area.

In 2006 an agreement was signed between the firm and the then Ministry of Transport that expressed the " rights and obligations that were going to be redefined” there, it stated that the company would promise to carry out 15 construction jobs but out of those, 66.66% were unfulfilled". Besides these "serious delays", "at the time of the audit, the work schedule had not been approved."

Of the total works planned, 46.66% were executed "with delays", among which highlights "the installation of 100 monitors with information on arrivals and departures in halls and public sectors, which should have been done by March 2009 but were completed 24 months later." The construction and installation of four elevators that were planned for June or December 2009 were delayed 22 months.

Among the three works not executed is "the new distribution of charges on the ground floor, which had been scheduled for the period from June to December 2009, but at the end of the audit, in 2012, still did not meet the security measures required by the Airport Police."

Finally, regarding the certificates the AGN found that almost 38% "was lodged out of time by the dealer, which makes it difficult for the Regulatory National Transport Commission (NRTC) to control it correctly." These documents are reported in monthly notes on the status of the works.

Accessibility

Law 24.314 regulates the Integral Protection of persons with disabilities and prioritizes the removal of physical barriers in urban areas as well as transport locations.

However, the auditors found that, for example, those entering the terminal by the Ramos Mejía Avenue "must use the ramp without handrails, even when it has a slope greater than the established". Those entering from the parking lot "must overcome the obstacle of different levels of ramps." In case you want to go in taxi "you have to travel 300 feet to the elevators doors."

On this last point the audit team noted that "the methodology used for new lifts forces people with disabilities to move around different sectors so they can find the token for the elevator, a situation exacerbated when information is erroneous".

TEBA SA did "not consider in the construction of the new international ticketing location the height, width, and depth necessary for good accessibility, nor did they provide the proper toilets for passengers with disabilities."

Go Around In Circles

In a previous report published by the AGN the Auditor.info had observed that "despite noncompliance by the grantee, the CNRT still hasn’t penalized Terminal Retiro its irregularities". A few years later, although linked to other issues, the observation still persists.

This time it's because "TEBA SA presents to the Regulatory Commission accounting information with inconsistencies, omissions, and missing, however, the controlling body still doesn’t give them a wake-up call." One of the shortcomings is that "even though the firm is required to submit monthly statistical passenger volume data, according to the bidding terms and conditions they did not send that information because they consider it to be “non essential”. In addition, "on the payroll of 2007, 2008, and 2009 they didn’t specify every persons jobs, nor did they list the directional ranks”.