THE CNMI government’s financial audits for fiscal years 2020 and 2021 have not been initiated due to a delay in the submission of necessary documents, the office of Lt. Gov. Arnold I. Palacios said.
In a statement, his office said the Department of Finance “has apparently refused to provide the Office of the Public Auditor the documents necessary to carry out, as mandated by law, the FY 2020 audit.”
OPA has met with Finance’s officials and has followed up “numerous times, and still has not been able to obtain the documents needed to initiate the FY 2020 audit,” the lt. governor’s office stated.
This means that even the FY 2021 CNMI financial audit has not been initiated, the lt. governor’s office added.
Noting that the annual audit is required by law, the lt. governor’s office said not providing the documents to OPA “is a violation of law and inhibits transparency and accountability of the CNMI government to its people.”
Timely completion of audits is necessary to secure and maintain federal funds, the lt. governor’s office added.
Staff shortage
In an interview on Thursday, Finance Secretary David DLG Atalig confirmed the submission of documents necessary for the financial audits for FY 2020 has been delayed for about a year, but the audit “should be finalized by the end of his month.”
He said Deloitte & Touche LLC “has been wrapping it up as we speak and we will be engaging right away, in early November, into the FY 2021 audit.”
Atalig said the delay in providing OPA the documents necessary for the audit “is due to staff shortages and the Covid-19 pandemic.” Ideally, he added, the financial audit should be done within nine months after the fiscal year.
Atalig said the auditors and Finance were hit by Covid 19 issues. At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, he said employees left Finance and the new staffers were not aware of the transactions in the past, causing delays in providing documents to OPA.
Atalig said Finance and its auditors are wrapping up the FY 2020 and FY 2021 financial audits, and “we also had a request for proposals or RFPs…to get the FY 2022 financial audit.”
He said this means that Finance is trying to audit the CNMI’s financials for the three fiscal years “so that we can catch up with the delays due to staff shortages and the Covid pandemic.”
Atalig said Finance is also implementing a new system that should speed up the audit. With the new system, he said auditors will see transactions with more transparency while not relying too much on hard copy documentations.
“Everything, from invoices to contracts, is uploaded and digitalized in the system so that should speed up the process,” he said.
