The Comptroller of Puerto Rico issues an adverse opinion on the operations of the Empresa de Desarrollo Económico de la Tierra Alta (EDDETA) of the Municipality of Jayuya, related to the budget and its oversight by the Municipality. This enterprise, created in June 2013 by Ordinance 81, manages Tu Bolera, the Homero Aulet Municipal Theater, the Juan B. Oliver Frau Activities Center, the Children's Park, the Ismael Vega Marketplace, and the Municipal Tutoring Center/School of Performing Arts.
The Report reveals that the executive director of EDDETA did not prepare the operational budgets from 2014 to 2017, the financial statements of 2014 and 2015 reflected an adverse opinion, and the bank reconciliations were not prepared correctly. Added to these deficiencies are the delay in the preparation of the revenue and expense subsidiaries of each sub-business, a statement of financial position prepared by an accountant in 2014 that contained unreliable information, and the failure of the Board and the executive director to prepare a purchase order procedure.
Our auditors identified that the executive director performed conflicting functions since, while she was the custodian of the ATH cards and the checkbook, she made the deposits at the bank, prepared the employees' payrolls, and signed the appointments, contracts, and checks. In addition, from 2013 to 2014, the rental fee for the function halls of the Juan B. Oliver Frau Activities Center was not collected on 36 occasions, without any explanation or authorization from the Board.
The three-finding audit notes that since the creation of EDDETA no audit plans had been established nor had it been audited by the Municipality's internal auditor. This situation deprives management of necessary information about the functioning of the controls and other operations.
The Report evidences multiple deficiencies in some of the transactions carried out with EDDETA funds; for example, the issuance of 164 checks with a repeated number, the purchase of equipment for $31,146 for a sofrito sales store that was never established, or the unreliable information not reconciled with the bank statements of the 2015 Income Statement. In addition, EDDETA, whose purpose is not to make loans, disbursed $8,000 as a loan to the municipal enterprise Salud Integral de la Tierra Alta that manages the hospital and that as of October 2016 had not returned the money.
The Report covers the period from January 1, 2012, to June 30, 2016.
See Audit Report M-18-30.
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