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The Office of the Comptroller of Puerto Rico issued a qualified opinion on the fiscal operations of the municipality of Moca. A qualified opinion is issued when the instances of noncompliance, individually or in the aggregate, are significant but not pervasive.

The Report reveals that the Municipality did not carry out administrative investigations for the property not located in the physical inventories from 2016 to 2019. The person in charge of property did not locate 138 units of property valued at $215,470; among these, an excavator, a tractor with a mower, two school buses, and 35 trucks. This situation, contrary to the Regulation for Municipal Administration of 2016, makes it difficult to assign responsibilities in the event of losses.

The three-finding audit notes that 25% of the receipts used for the dispatch of fuel before and during the Hurricane María emergency were neither located nor provided by the municipal officials for examination. This situation, which is attributed to the lack of supervision of the director of Public Works, fosters the commission of irregularities such as the dispatch of gasoline to non-official vehicles, among others.

The Comptroller's auditors identified economic resources of $1,792,405 inactive for 29 months, and overdrafts of $2,119,618 in 33 special and ordinary municipal funds, according to the Monthly Report of August 31, 2019. A similar situation had been commented on in Audit Report M-19-17 of 2018.

The audit comments that, as of December 3, 2019, Moca had two civil lawsuits for $310,000 pending resolution in the courts, and a declaratory judgment lawsuit without a monetary amount.

The Report recommends that the Office of Management and Budget ensure that the Municipality complies with the Corrective Action Plan established by the Office of the Comptroller.

The Report covers the period from July 1, 2017 to December 31, 2019.

See Audit Report M-20-34.

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