An audit carried out by the Internal Control Body (OIC) of the Metro Collective Transport Service (STC) revealed that there were breaches of a supplier contracted for the maintenance of Line 12 tracks during the first year of Claudia Sheinbaum’s administration.
According to Audit A-3/2021, the “non-compliance in the application and processing of conventional penalties of the STC-CNCS-070/2019 contract” was analyzed.
Said contract, which was awarded to the provider TSO-NGE MÉXICO SA de CV, had the purpose of contracting the preventive and corrective maintenance service of the Line 12 track installations, in addition to the contracting of the rail replacement service in curves. 1B, 2B, 43, 44, 55 and 56.
In the twelfth clause of the contract, which began in force from April 23 to December 31, 2019, it is specified that in the event that the provider “does not perform the service in accordance with the provisions of this administrative contract, it will give rise to the STC applies a conventional penalty to the supplier”.
In technical Annex 1 of the same contract, the penalties were detailed, which included that for each day that passed in which the speed of the Line 12 trains had been degraded due to lack of maintenance, “the service provider will be penalized with 1% for each day of the amount corresponding to 100% of the total value to be billed for maintenance in the corresponding month.
It was added that for suspension of the service, the service provider will be penalized with the amount of the affectation that will be calculated by STC.
In this context, the OIC specified in the audit that it requested the Procurement and Contracting Services Management to provide evidence of the application of penalties to the supplier for non-compliance with the contract, to which it responded that there were no records of penalties.
“Notwithstanding the foregoing, it was identified that through official letter GACS/54100/6132/2020 of July 20, 2020, the manager of Acquisitions and Contracting of Services sent invoice A549 to the Accounting Department, for an amount of $7,044,887.74 and note of credit A550 for an amount of $2,113,446.40 duly reviewed and authorized by the user area, in order to carry out the procedure corresponding to the payment.
“Derived from the foregoing, it is concluded that there is a contradiction in the response provided by the Procurement and Service Contracting Management.”
As a consequence, the OIC requested the General Directorate of the STC, the Subdirectorate General of Administration and Finance and the Directorate of Material Human Resources and General Services to report why there was no record of the conventional penalties and non-compliance with the services performed under protection if there are records that the application of penalties was requested.
In response on August 31, 2021, the Procurement and Contracting Services Management stated that “there was indeed a contradiction” in the information provided to the OIC, the foregoing, it added, was due “to the lack of opportunity to verify the content of the documentation that is in the case file (…) since it had been sent to the Legal Department (…) in this context, it is considered that there was no injury to the interests of the organization.”