The Office of the Comptroller of Puerto Rico (OCPR) issued a qualified opinion on the operations of the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus. A qualified opinion is issued when the noncompliances, individually or together, are significant but not pervasive.
The report mentions that, of the 18,371 purchase orders for $53,760,379, the UPR split 5,184 orders for $9,787,928, made to 56 providers. With this, the requirement to hold a bid that is required when purchase requisitions exceed $50,000 was evaded. This occurred from July 1, 2016, to June 30, 2020, for the purchase, among other things, of office and sanitary materials; laboratory materials; building maintenance materials; and for office equipment, air conditioners, laboratory, computer, and audiovisual equipment; for maintenance services for communication equipment and buildings; and for the lease of photocopying machines.
The report also revealed that 11 purchase orders for $101,027 were issued with an advance payment term, which did not have the approval of the director of Finance. These orders were issued from April 3, 2017, to February 5, 2020, for the purchase of office, educational-use, security, construction, and sanitary materials and equipment, and for services related to food preparation, the maintenance of equipment and buildings, and for the lease of equipment.
Among the deficiencies related to purchase disbursements, from September 20, 2016, to January 27, 2021, the report reveals that UPR-Río Piedras made 58 disbursements for $350,356 for 57 invoices. Of these, 7 invoices and their supporting documents were not marked with the word paid or canceled once the payment was made. These invoices were issued from September 1, 2016, to June 2, 2020, and were paid from September 20, 2016, to July 16, 2020.
The auditors observed, among other things, that 7 of 8 disbursement vouchers, for withholdings to employees for $1,383,711, were paid between 1 and 187 days before the documents were pre-audited. Other findings of the report were: absence of provisions in the Purchasing Regulations, and internal procedures related to disbursement operations not updated; and contracts submitted to the OCPR with delays, and others without submitting a true and exact copy.
This report covers the period from July 1, 2016, to April 30, 2021.
See Audit Report CP-22-10.
To see other published reports, visit our section of Audit Reports.
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