As a result of an audit Ministry of Mines and EnergyThe Comptroller’s Office will complete 16 administrative sets, of which 12 will present a disciplinary incidence, eight are of a fiscal nature and one for a preliminary investigation for more than 68,789 million pesos.
These irregularities within the entity were registered in 2021 and 2022, when the Minister of Mines and Energy was Diego Mesathat is, during the administration of Iván Duque.
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The Comptroller established that there is a growing deficit of resources to cover the subsidies for lower rates by the electric power companies to the beneficiary users thereof.
At the end of the 2022 term, the Solidarity Fund for Subsidies and Income Redistribution (Fssri) presented an accumulated deficit, which implies that it had a debt with the energy service providers.
The lack of controls by the Ministry of Mines and Energy -says the control entity- despite the power granted, leads to an imbalance between the granting of subsidies in strata one, two and three and the non-collection of contributions, which increases the deficit Fssri permanent
The procedures defined by the same ministry for the administration of the Fssri fund have allowed situations where some marketers accumulate large contribution balances that subsequently could not be turned to the bottom.
This makes it clear that the lack of definition of the times to review and validate the reconciliations sent by the marketers, is a weakness in the control mechanisms that exist in the procedures and instructions of the ministry.
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Dicel Payment Agreement
The Comptroller will reduce the company’s inability to pay Distributor and Marketer of Electric Power (Dicel) to continue complying with the signed payment agreement and other obligations with the Fssri fund.
This is because the Administrator of the Commercial Exchange System (Asic) established this company two limitations in the supply of electrical energy as of April 20 and 24, 2023 and later, as of May 4, 2023, it was withdrawn from the wholesale market.
This withdrawal means that you will not be able to carry out transactions in the wholesale energy market and consequently will not be able to generate income. Thus, the Comptroller will decrease to the detriment of more than 29,755 million pesos due to the impossibility of recovering what was owed to Fssri.
additionally, the trading company owes contributions collected and not drawn to the Ministry of Mines and Energy during 2021 and 2022 a total of 14,324 million pesos.
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Subsidies drawn higher than those requested
According to the revisions made to the calculation reports for the 2021 and 2022 periods, the Comptroller’s Office also establishes irregularities in the amounts of subsidies contained therein.
According to the control entity, the figures do not correspond to the information reported by some of the companies electricity marketers, a fact that caused a tax loss of 5,520 million pesos.
Additionally, it was found that in October 2022 the Ministry of Mines and Energy validated subsidies and contributions to the company Qenergy between the second quarter of 2018 and the second quarter of 2022.
It was possible to determine that this company owed the ministry 9,804 million pesos for contributions not drawn, securities for which to date the entity has not managed their recovery. In spite of this, the value of the corresponding subsidies has been turned periodically.
affinity case
The Comptroller also found irregularities in the application of the sanctioning clauses to Afinia for non-compliance with execution schedules of resources from the Electric Networks Standardization Program (Prone) three years after the start of the contracts.
In seven contracts, the control entity evidence of delays of up to 100 percent in the works execution schedules compared to the disbursements made until the second semester of 2022, presenting deviations between 40 and 100 percent with respect to the current schedules in the completion of milestones.
In addition, following the request of a citizen to investigate an alleged patrimonial damage against the Nation for 27,455 million pesos Due to the lack of execution and breach of 20 2019 contracts entered into between the Ministry of Mines and Energy and Afinia, the Comptroller’s Office initiated the respective investigation.
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When carrying out the respective analyzes, it was evidenced that after three years of the initiation of the contracts (December 31, 2019), and after the stage of the Construction Administration and Commissioning Activity (October 31, 2022), these were not executed and all are in the process of declaring non-compliance.
However, the ministry did not apply the penalty clauses set forth in the contracts and contracting manualdue to non-compliance with contractual obligations, even when during the term of the contracts supervision evidenced that the company was in arrears in complying with the activities of the current schedules.
This has generated that the objectives of the approved projects are not met, preventing the satisfaction of the needs for which the contracts that sought the standardization of Electrical networks in subnormal neighborhoods of the department of Bolívar.
