A series of efforts designed to improve railway stations in several cities of the country were delayed so much that it cost more than 16 million pesos over the projected estimates.

The parts were part of the Urban Transportation Project for Metropolitan Areas (PTUMA, for its acronym in Spanish), an initiative financed by a loan from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD). While delays and extra disbursements were issues warned by the General Audit Office (AGN) that investigated how that program was managed between 2011 and 2014 at that time by the Ministry of Transportation.

The Watchdog, which approved its report last year, noted that "the successive extensions of terms" in the contracts "generated an increase in costs of 42% - in the works - and 119.46% for supervision" of works.

According to the survey, in numbers, this meant more than 16 million pesos. The original amount of the initiative amounted to $35.3 million but finally paid about $ 50.3 million.

To this, we must add that the work supervision contract had an initial amount, up to September 23rd, 2010 of $ 989 thousand. However, that control ended up costing just over $ 2 million in December 2012.

"The reasons for the extension of the deadlines lie mainly in requests from the Municipalities participating in the works and in delays in the ranks," concludes the AGN, adding that the costs "should have been adjusted by price redetermination", a mechanism foreseen in the Work Contract to consider the fluctuations in the values ​​of the inputs.

Going back to the check-ups of the undertakings, the Audit accessed reports from consultants on the progress of the tasks and noted that "only in some cases is there mention of the existence of control activities carried out" in situ "by the Central Executing Unit", which was the office of the former Ministry of Transportation in charge of overseeing the initiative.

The AGN even discovered that only one of the works of these consultants was approved by the Ministry of Transport "but by personnel outside the project, and in three other cases it was found that there was no final approval."

The Administration

On the other hand, the Audit affirmed that "according to international criteria, the administrative cost of this type of projects should not exceed 3% of the total loan" granted by a multilateral organization.

However, in 2014 -the last year analyzed in the report the administrative rates reached 4.75 percent of the total "thus exceeding the source value", the auditors closed.

The Performance

Despite these data, the AGN investigation indicated that "the project had a reduced physical and financial execution, reaching 28.9% of the total".

The report also stated that "at the closing date of the field tasks (December 2014), an execution close to 75% was expected", since that year represented the fourth of a project that was designed to last six years.

The Matanza’s Metrobus

As already mentioned, it was anticipated that in its first stage the initiative would last about six years, between 2010 and 2016, for a total amount of 150 million dollars.

However, the Audit reports that "in 2012, procedures were initiated that led to changes in the Investment Matrix, which was called the Loan Re-engineering Process, which was ultimately approved in May 2015 by the Ministry of Economy and Finance." In a few words, these changes meant that work was canceled in the interior of the country, and the activities focused on the so-called AMBA, that is, the Metropolitan Area of ​​Buenos Aires, which also increased costs by more than 37 million dollars.

The report features that the general project had six components, among which the one, creation of the Metropolitan Transportation Agency for Buenos Aires; the two, Urban Transport Improvements in Medium-sized Cities (Mendoza, Posadas, Tucumán, Córdoba, Rosario); and three, Access to Public Transport and Integration in Buenos Aires.

The AGN says that "component two (the one reserved to the cities of the interior) had a reduction in its costs of 49 percent, works were canceled, which were replaced by others. While component three (the Integration of Buenos Aires), recorded an increase of 159 percent and incorporated jobs that were not provided.

Among these works appears the so-called BRT Corridor in National Route 3. It is the Metrobús of La Matanza and, on this, the researchers said that the enterprise "does not contain an analysis that bases its selection on replacement of others".

In addition, the report completes, "it was not possible to determine whether the cost-effectiveness studies were carried out that supported the incorporation (of the Metrobús) in the project in terms of improving transportation for the user population."

Highlights

Not all the mentions in the Audit's report were objections. In fact, the Watchdog listed some "outstanding aspects" of the management of the international loan, among which is "the concretion of the Metropolitan Transportation Agency of Buenos Aires; the design and implementation of the Urban Transportation Planning Master course, in agreement with three faculties of the University of Buenos Aires; the preparation of the procedural manuals (from the office of the former Ministry of Transport that carried out the initiative); and the implementation of an inventory of goods purchased with program funds."