And: Most of the time, the Ministry of Transport waived offsetting. The period from 2015 to 2019 was checked.
The BB shows overpayments transparently in the balance sheet as liabilities and is ready to repay the amounts at any time, according to a statement by the company on the RH report. Any surplus could be transferred back or offset against future subsidies. This year there is still a remittance of around 600 million euros pending.
The previous history: In the course of its review of the 2019 federal financial statements, the Court of Auditors found that BB-Infrastruktur AG had a liability of around EUR 1.147 billion from previous years to the federal government in its annual financial statements as of December 31, 2019. This has prompted the Court of Auditors to examine “grant agreements for financing the BB’s rail infrastructure”.
The BB Infrastructure created an annual master plan, but this was not approved annually by the Council of Ministers. In this case, the framework plan from the previous period remained in effect. The grant agreements were also not concluded annually in the period under review. The consequence: the Ministry of Transport made the payments on the basis of the grant agreements concluded in the previous period. The Ministry of Auditors criticizes that the Ministry has based its grant contracts with BB Infrastructure on regularly excessive planned funding requirements.
Because less was spent than planned, liabilities to the federal government totaled around 1.147 billion euros by the end of 2019. These were left in the company free of interest. The Court of Auditors recommended that the Ministry of Transport and Finance actually demand the planned repayments of the outstanding 1.147 billion euros from the BB infrastructure. According to the Ministry of Finance, a repayment is in progress, reports the Court of Auditors.
The improvement of the safety of the operated rail infrastructure should also be regulated in the grant agreements. If a specified upper limit for security-relevant incidents is exceeded, BB-Infrastruktur AG must make a compensation payment to the federal government in accordance with the grant agreement. All security-relevant incidents must be recorded regardless of whether they result in damage.
From 2015 to 2019, BB-Infrastruktur AG reported 8,927 security-related incidents. Of these, she was responsible for 15 percent – i.e. 1,301 security-related incidents. People were injured in ten cases, of which travelers were affected in three cases. Property damage was recorded 713 times. 85 percent of these incidents related to derailments, collisions and the impairment of safe operation due to serious deficiencies in technical equipment and rail vehicles. The number of reported security-related incidents increased during the test period. The Court of Auditors recommends developing measures to reduce security-related incidents.
In 2018, the BB noticed an increase in incidents in operational safety in the group. As a result, “additional measures were developed and their implementation started”, according to the BB. The company is investing 2 billion euros in the current master plan until 2027 to improve safety and operational management.
Source From: Nachrichten
