The Comptroller of Puerto Rico issues an adverse opinion on the internal regulations, the electronic transfers (ACH- Automated Clearing House), the accountability, and the payment for services without a contract of the Aqueduct and Sewer Authority.
The audit reveals that 18 of the 19 regulations and 150 of the 200 procedures have gone up to 61 years without being reviewed as required by the law that creates the Authority, Act 40 of 1945. These situations prevent employees and officials from having up-to-date regulations and foster the improper use of property and public funds.
Our auditors detected that the Authority did not have a regulation on ACH electronic transfers, which amounted to $4,784 million from 2009 to 2016, and they also did not keep a record of the employees who had access to the bank's web application through which the electronic transfers are made. This lack of controls is due to the fact that the Executive President did not request the preparation, review, and approval of the regulations necessary to govern the transfers.
The four-finding Report points out that the Authority did not submit the Strategic Plan to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on May 1, 2012 as required by Act 236-2010 on Accountability and Execution of Government Programs, but rather 1,148 days later. In addition, as of December 21, 2015 it had not submitted to the OMB the annual execution plans from 2013 to 2016, nor the 2015 Results Report.
The audit also reveals that five payment agreements were formalized for more than $1 million for services rendered from 1992 to 2012 without any contracts in place. A similar situation was commented on in Special Report CP-10-31 of June 7, 2010. The absence of a contract prior to the rendering of services fosters an environment for fraudulent and illegal claims to be submitted and for payment to be made for services not rendered.
The Report covers the period from January 1, 2009 to September 30, 2016.
See Audit Report CP-17-09.
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