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The Office of the Comptroller of Puerto Rico issued a qualified opinion on the fiscal operations of the Federal Surplus Property Donation Program (Program) of the General Services Administration of the Government of Puerto Rico (ASG). A qualified opinion is issued when the noncompliances individually or in the aggregate are significant, but not pervasive.

The Report reveals that the Program took up to a year to conduct inspections on 36% of the donated property subject to restriction periods. The Federal Management Regulation and Act No. 28 – Puerto Rico Operations Plan for the Federal Surplus Property Donation Program, establish a restriction period, that is, that donees must use the property within a period no greater than one year from the donation and in accordance with the purposes for which it was donated. The auditors identified, among the donated property, a forklift, a truck tractor and a passenger motor vehicle.

The inspections not conducted on time deprive potential donees of receiving property that may be useful for their operations. A similar situation had been commented on in the Audit Report DA-19-12 of 2018.

The one-finding audit comments that Act No. 28 has not been updated in accordance with the changes incorporated in the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949, as amended, and federal regulations. For example, the current law does not contemplate imposing restriction periods on property with a cost of $5,000, and charging for the services offered by the Program.

In addition, the Government or Treasury Commissions of the Legislative Assembly have not conducted audits of the Program, as provided by law, since 2012. The director of the Program and the secretary of the House of Representatives certified that no documents were conducted or found in this regard.

This Report covers the period from September 1, 2018 to April 30, 2021.

See Audit Report DA-22-02.

To see other published reports, visit our Audit Reports section.