Mori said it has become apparent that the performance of the Program Management Unit would be greatly enhanced and Compact Infrastructure project implementation improved thorough the actions of this project because currently, there has been little reconciliation between financial records kept for infrastructure projects by the U.S. Department of Interior-Office of Insular Affairs and parallel records kept by PMU.
The president also stated that there is insufficient coordination between the Department of Finance, the Office of Statistics, Budget, Overseas Development Assistance and Compact Management, and the PMU to manage financial and other records of Compact infrastructure projects to facilitate comprehensive monitoring and reporting.
Mori also noted a significant lack of data analysis to track annual and total project expenses.
The working group for the PMU Financial Records Management Project will be comprised of one or two appropriate designees from the Department of Finance, the Office of SBOC, the Department of Transportation, Communication and Infrastructure.
The PMU and should focus on scoping the exact needs for and appropriate implementation of Compact infrastructure sector grant financial record keeping.
In addition, the group will identify adequate staffing needs to maintain an expanded record keeping mandate for the future.
All designees will be chosen by the respective heads of these agencies.
Mori stated that this project will not only benefit the executive branch in enhancing the performance of the PMU, but it will provide transparency for the state governments, the FSM Congress, the U.S. Office of Insular Affairs and for the Joint Economic Management Committee.
The timeline for this project is for completion within the next three weeks and a mid-year report regarding project implementation generated by early March 2010.
