THE government is unable to recover close to $5.8 million in improper expenditures of public funds, overpayments in professional services contracts and unpaid rentals of land leases, according to the Office of the Public Auditor.
Public Auditor Mike Sablan, in a report released yesterday, said initial actions by government agencies resulted in the partial recovery of $134,222 and write-offs of $5,499.
This leaves a balance of $5,790,524 in unrecovered government funds as of last year.
Of this figure, $3.7 million is due from seven quarry operators for six land lease years.
Due to overpayments on 10 professional service contracts, the government should also be recovering $1.5 million from these contractors.
The rest of the unrecovered funds are divided among 13 government agencies.
All this is part of OPA’s report on CNMI agencies’ implementation of audit recommendations as of Dec. 2001, which also showed 47 total delinquent audit recommendations.
A delinquent recommendation is one that has been outstanding for at least 180 days, wherein OPA has not been informed of any action being taken to close this recommendation.
OPA, however, noted a 23 percent decline in delinquent recommendations, or from 61 in 2000 to 47 in 2001.
The Public School System tops the list of agencies that remain delinquent in complying with OPA’s audit recommendations.
PSS has 14 delinquent recommendations between 1995 and 2001, while Northern Marianas College has six.
The Commonwealth Utilities Corp. has five delinquent recommendations that all go back to 1995.
The Department of Lands and Natural Resources and the Retirement Fund also have five delinquent recommendations each.
OPA issued 10 audit reports to various government agencies in 2001. These resulted in a total of 37 new recommendations.
These are in addition to the 162 recommendations outstanding at the beginning of the year, resulting in a total of 199 recommendations tracked in 2001.
Of the 199 audit recommendations, 87 were “closed,” largely because government agencies involved acted on them by implementing policies, and by issuing memoranda and directives to re-emphasize the need for compliance with existing laws and regulations.
OPA said of the remaining 112 open or resolved recommendations, 47 were considered delinquent.
Recommendations issued by private CPA firms are also included in OPA’s audit recommendations tracking report.
As of Dec. 31, 2001, CPA firms issued 12 audit reports on the internal control structure and compliance with laws and regulations, 10 of which set forth a total of 112 recommendations.
Of the 112 recommendations, six were closed and 116 remained either open or resolved.
OPA said 60 of these are considered delinquent.
In addition to audit reports, OPA also issued in 2001 seven procurement reports that included decisions on appeals and requests for reconsideration, as well as seven special reports.
