The Office of the Comptroller of Puerto Rico issued a qualified opinion on the fiscal operations of the Driver Services Center of Arecibo (CESCO) of Arecibo. A qualified opinion is issued when the noncompliances, individually or in the aggregate, are significant but not pervasive.
The Report reveals deficiencies in the receipt and handling of the administrative fine tickets issued by law enforcement officers. Our auditors identified that the name of the employee who received the tickets was not recorded in the Registry, the forms prepared by the officers were destroyed without verifying them against the tickets received, and the envelopes with the tickets were not kept in a secure place but on top of the desks.
In addition, in the document archive, 55,650 tickets from the years 2006 to 2011 were found, valued at more than $3 million, that had not been sent to be digitized at the Directorate of Driver Services. As of June 30, 2017, it was detected from a sample that 48% of the tickets issued to motor vehicles for $1.5 million had expired. The expiration of the tickets leads to losses to the treasury since the amount of the fines cannot be collected.
The two-finding audit also notes the absence of documents in the files of special transactions, which may lead to errors and irregularities, such as the lack of documents evidencing that the license plates were returned to the CESCO by their registered owner. In addition, contrary to the regulations, CESCO officials did not complete the required information on the corresponding form of the Department of Transportation and Public Works regarding the imposition of liens.
The Report covers the period from January 1, 2014 to December 31, 2017.
See Audit Report DA-19-15.
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