When Public Works and Transport Minister Karla González promised a room full of journalists Tuesday that an electric train for San José's urban area was on track, she appears to have spoken too soon.

According to a story published yesterday in the daily La Nación, the comptroller general has annulled the contract awarded to a Brazilian firm to carry out the feasibility studies for the project. The yearlong study was to be the basis for the eventual contract to build the train, supplying details on the infrastructure necessary, number of passengers and costs, among other things.

The construction and operation of the train was to be bid out as a concession, and González had assured press this week that the contract would be assigned before President Oscar Arias' term ends in 2010.

However, the daily reported, the comptroller found that the National Concessions Council, a part of González's Ministry of Public Works and Transport (MOPT), messed up in the international bidding process.

With plans for a metropolitan electric train dating back to 2003, MOPT originally attempted to put the feasibility study up for international bidding in years past, but abandoned it in 2005. When the CNC initiated the process again last year, it apparently failed to notify the original bidders, a procedural violation serious enough to annul the current contract, awarded to the Brazilian Firm Engevix Egenharia S.A. for $1.3 million, La Nación reported.

The comptroller also said the CNC failed to present a certification that it had a budget to pay the Brazilian firm.

While the vice minister of concessions, Guillermos Matamoros, assured the daily the contract would be fixed and sent to the comptroller again for approval by May, the time periods for the completion of the study and the preparation and bidding of another contract for the construction and operation of the train will take the project into 2010 and a new presidency.