Articles

Guest tribune
by Yesmín M. Valdivieso

Tuesday, November 1, 2016

“They conspire to defraud”

The first report of the Office of the Comptroller of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico was published in 1952. In this report, findings were made regarding the collections and the physical inventories of property and materials of the Municipal Housing Authority of the Capital of Puerto Rico.

From 1952 to the present, the Office has published 10,041 audit reports of Government entities. These reports include thousands of situations where public funds and property were not used correctly. In each of these reports, our Office made recommendations so that they would not happen again.

And so, why is Puerto Rico experiencing its worst crisis? We can attribute it to so many things: an economic situation beyond our control, the departure of the 936 corporations, and so on. The truth is that from our Office we see one constant reason: the lack of acknowledgment of what our reports detail; impunity, not only of the one we call corrupt; and the lack of clear consequences for the work and duties not fulfilled.

Some criticize the fact that our audits and reports are not timely, that our audits and reports are published after everything has already happened. But the truth is that this was exactly the vision the Constituent Assembly had when it created the position of Comptroller and the Office. Our objective and responsibility is to see how the decisions, both daily and of public policy established by our officials and leaders, were carried out.

We are not only responsible, as comptrollers, for issuing an opinion on the good or the bad of those decisions as we see fit. Those opinions are based on sufficient, competent, and relevant evidence that our auditors gather during their audits. Therefore, nothing included in the reports is by whim of the comptroller of the moment and of career employees with many years of experience. Much less based on perceptions according to the party color of the Governor who appointed us or of the Senate and the House of Representatives that confirmed us.

I have the great honor of being the seventh person, in the more than 64 years of history of our Government, to hold the position of Comptroller of Puerto Rico. My predecessors were Rafael de J. Cordero, Justo Nieves Torres, Basilio Santiago, Ramón Rivera Marrero, Ileana Colón Carlo, and Manuel Díaz Saldaña. In their own way, each one was what they were. Some more vocal, others more quiet, but all fulfilled their position with responsibility.

From the beginning of my tenure I accepted the fact that no matter who or what party governed, it was the responsibility of those persons to define what public policy was carried out and that I would speak through our reports, after having compelling and sufficient evidence to say how those decisions turned out.

From the chair I have occupied for more than six years, I have seen how the People’s money is squandered; the excessive contracting of duties that belong to occupied positions; the payment of invoices for services not rendered; persons who, by not fulfilling the basic duties of their position, with their attitude allow fraud; how, out of laziness, they look at a project and find it nice and complete without noticing that several of the requirements of their contracts were not carried out; how several conspire to defraud the Government in exchange for thirty pieces of silver; and how all of this occurs with persons of any party.

The reports of the Office of the Comptroller should be required reading for anyone who wants and yearns for a better Puerto Rico, whether a politician, official, or public servant.

Let us use the experience gained through our audits to redefine the new public governance that our Island requires in these times of crisis.