Wednesday, December 12, 2017
Source: Vocero
By: InterNewsService
The Office of the Comptroller of Puerto Rico detected illegalities in the contracting of professional and consulting services in the Municipality of Cataño.
A report reveals the contracting of five regular corporations that provided legal, medical-hospital, engineering, and air-conditioning maintenance services for $12.8 million from March 2009 to April 2013, contrary to the legal framework.
“These services could only be provided through the legal figure of a professional corporation,” the Office of the Comptroller indicated.
In addition, and contrary to Act 81 of 1991 on Autonomous Municipalities and to the contracts formalized, three of the corporations mentioned subcontracted the services.
For example, the two medical-hospital corporations subcontracted the administrator, the doctors, the laboratory and X-ray technicians, and the billing.
The president of the engineering corporation, who did not hold the required licenses, also subcontracted an engineer and evaluators who performed the services since the corporation had no employees.
The situations were referred to Justice, the Examining Board of Engineers and Land Surveyors of Puerto Rico, the College of Engineers and Land Surveyors of Puerto Rico, the Examining Board of Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Technicians, and the Department of State on July 28 and August 24, 2017 for the corresponding actions.
The audit also points out that the municipality made an illegal payment of 205,000 dollars to one of the medical-hospital corporations and that it provided services without a written contract having been formalized. In addition, contrary to Act 237 of 2004 on the establishment of uniform parameters in the processes of contracting professional and consulting services, the engineering services contract was formalized with a term longer than the 12 consecutive months permitted by law.
The auditors identified that six contracts and three amendments were not submitted for the approval of the Municipal Legislature, which prevented it from fulfilling its responsibility to authorize the contracting.
Likewise, as of December 31, 2014, Cataño had 15 civil lawsuits for 25 million pending resolution in the courts, and as of December 31, 2015 the municipality had not recovered 713,322 dollars recommended in a previous audit report.
The audit covers the period from January 1, 2010 to December 31, 2014.
Some documents on this page are saved in PDF format.
To view these documents, you must have the following free program installed.
