A report of the National Audit Office published on Thursday confirms the impression of the tragic condition of the Passenger Services unit of the Bulgarian State Railways (BDZ) company.

The audit report spans the period January 1, 2011 – September 30, 2012 and was assigned by the previous Parliament on September 19, 2012, according to reports of mediapool.bg.

According to the report, the rolling stock is worn out and does not meet modern standards and the fleet of aging rail cars cannot provide travel comfort for passengers.

According to the document, 4% of the train cars were manufactured in 1974, 35% of them were made before 1980, 42% were made between 1980 and 1989 and 20% were produced in the period 1990 – 1996.

The situation with locomotives is more or less the same, with 4% of them made more than 40 years ago and nearly half of them manufactured over 33 years ago. Some 30% of the total was delivered in the period 1994 – 2008.

Keeping the rail cars, locomotives and railcars technically compliant is difficult as the manufacturing of spare parts for some series has been stopped.

The restructuring of the railway company has not been completed by the time of the inspection, and the property has not been conclusively divided among BDZ Holding and the Passenger Services and Freight Services units.

As a result, BDZ Passenger Services has rented train cars and locomotives from BDZ Holding at its own expense, paying the parent company BGN 1.27 M, VAT excluded, in rent for 48 locomotives and BGN 336 000, VAT excluded, in rent for 7 train cars.

Meanwhile, BDZ Passenger Services has uncollected receivables from BDZ Freight Services amounting to BGN 21 M.