The Comptroller of Puerto Rico, Yesmín Valdivieso, spoke this morning on NotiCentro al Amanecer about recent audits carried out by that agency on the finances and operations of several municipalities, among these those of the municipality of Arecibo and of Mayagüez.
About Arecibo, Valdivieso explained that under the administration of former mayor Carlos Molina they “overestimated revenues in order to be able to spend,” noting that the revenues in the budgets had been increased by 30%, and that the municipality has a deficit of $30 million.
The Comptroller explained that these actions do not necessarily imply violations of the law. “In our audit we did not find any evidence of fraud. For there to be fraud we have to prove that something was done intentionally. Mere mismanagement or little diligence, or little ethics, the reality is that it is very difficult to make someone pay for that mismanagement,” said the official.
About the municipality of Mayagüez and the administration of mayor José Guillermo “Guillito” Rodríguez, Valdivieso said they are currently carrying out two audits in the municipality and in the municipal enterprise MEDI, which is the axis of other federal investigations over dubious investments and mortgaging municipal properties.
In the case of Mayagüez, the Office of the Comptroller's audits were referred to law-and-order agencies and generated the investigations that are underway.
On the responsibility and ethics that must be carried out in public administration, Valdivieso expressed that “if each one of us gives the best of ourselves, we are committed to Puerto Rico, we forget about petty politics, about what I like or don't like, we can move forward.”
The interview with Valdivieso took place in the framework of Government Ethics Week on the island.
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