The Comptroller of Puerto Rico issued a qualified opinion of the fiscal operations of the Municipality of Aguas Buenas. 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 obtain the permits from the Permit Management Office prior to the construction, in 2021, of two basketball courts in the Sumidero and Juan Asencio wards. The contracts were canceled on December 10, 2021, after the contractor pleaded guilty to bribery offenses against the then mayor.
As of September 8, 2022, the Municipality had disbursed $124,281 for the work performed on the courts, and owed $198,555 to the contractor for these projects, which were halted and in a state of abandonment (see photos in Comment 2 of the Report).
The three-finding audit notes that the clause of a contract granted in 2016 for 10 years for the collection and disposal of non-hazardous solid waste could have fostered the monthly overbilling and the possibility of $1,307,492 in overpayments. The contract for $11,711,636 did not establish the basis for determining the 10,000 collection units. When comparing the count of units of the Municipality's Territorial Plan with the active accounts in LUMA, it was observed that the Municipality could have paid for 1,431 to 3,051 units in excess. In addition, the contract only allowed increasing the collection units, and the Municipality did not conduct periodic counts to verify the correctness and accuracy of the payments.
The Report publishes that the minutes of 15 meetings of the Bidding Board held from 2020 to 2022 had not been transcribed, and other transcribed minutes of the Board's meetings were not printed. This deficiency detracts from the authenticity of the decisions made and reliable records of the evaluation of the bids are not maintained.
The audit notes the judicial proceedings of two former mayors of Aguas Buenas. The former mayor from 2017 to 2022 pleaded guilty to one federal count of conspiracy for his participation in a bribery scheme, for which he was sentenced to 37 months in prison. The former mayor from 2005 to 2017 pleaded guilty to participating in a bribery scheme, for which he was sentenced to 24 months in prison and two years of supervised release. The latter was released on March 1, 2023.
The audit recommends that the director of the Office of Management and Budget ensure that the Municipality of Aguas Buenas complies with the Corrective Action Plan established by the Office of the Comptroller.
The General Fund budget of the Municipality was $8,321,508 for fiscal year 2019, $8,505,557 for 2020, $7,291,422 for 2021 and $7,007,280 for 2022. The audited financial statements reflected accumulated surpluses in the General Fund of $1,488,504 in fiscal year 2019, $2,132,416 in 2020 and $2,097,952 in 2021. This second and final report on Aguas Buenas covers the period from July 1, 2018 to June 30, 2022.
See Audit Report OC-24-24.
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