"The National Regulatory Authority for Electricity (ENRE) was not effective in maintaining and improving the performance of Edenor and Edesur." That is how the General Audit Office (AGN, for its acronym in Spanish) qualifies the agency's work in 2011 and 2012 "they did not fine the companies despite having detected breaches in investment plans."

The data becomes relevant if one considers that federal judge Luis Rodriguez ordered an inquiry of the company’s works made since 2003 as a result of outages that occurred in December and January which affected various neighborhoods of the City. 

The report of the AGN was intended to "verify the control conducted by the ENRE on projects and managing critical assets of both companies in 2011, 2012 and first quarter of 2013."

To audit the investment plans of the distribution ENRE hired the University of San Martin to follow the case of EDENOR and the National Technological University to see the work of EDESUR.

Furthermore, an agreement with the University of La Matanza was also held in order to "develop a management system to control both distributions made on critical assets."

This latest agreement the Audit found that "although the licensee firms were slow to provide the information there is no evidence that the ENRE has initiated any actions for sanctions.” 

The agreement with the University of La Matanza stated that "once approved, the reports would proceed to pay." However, the disbursement was made "without the prior approval."

Back to the investment. The AGN explained that "the ENRE was actively involved in plans for Edenor and Edesur but failed to meet that goal." In addition it was found that "it does not require them to complete and uniform investment which prevents subsequent comparisons and determine the amounts executed."

Some of the audits conducted by the regulatory body detected performances that "jeopardized the power supply", but as "an updated and appropriate regulatory framework was unable to exercise in full its role as regulator."

Nor did they track the physical progress of the works in a timely manner "as it should be done in conjunction with the work" but was "with a delay of six months in 2011 and has not detected any submission for 2012."

To this "ignorance about the technical quality of the work done by the distributors pursuant to the agreed investment plan" and that "the reports submitted by the universities do not have that data" adds.

It is the ENRE’s responsibility that companies comply with the works they promise and should do to ensure the power supply. We are near the summer period when major outages are historically recorded.