Tribunal de Contas da União (TCU), the Brazilian federal audit court, has reported that it has found several irregularities in the country's Transnordestina railway construction project.

If the irregularities are not resolved, the TCU could cancel the concession. The project is currently in construction stage and there is still no scheduled completion date.

The project in being developed by Transnordestina Logística (TLSA), a subsidiary of local steelmaker CSN. It involves the construction of a 1,753 km railway to connect the city of Eliseu Martins in Piauí to the ports of Suape in Pernambuco state and Pecém in Ceará state.

The total project investment is estimated at Rs11.2 billion (US$3.05 billion), which represent almost the triple of the investment estimated in 2005. At that time, Brazil's national ground transport agency (ANTT) approved the development of the project which was estimated to take 3 years to build, cost Rs4.5 billion and transport 30 million tons of freight per year.