Nothing recovered from $6.2M in misspent taxpayers’ money—again

In another six-month period, government agencies including the Office of the Attorney General failed to recover a single cent out of $6.2 million in taxpayers’ money that were misspent, overpaid to professional service contractors or unpaid land leases dating as far back as 1995.

The OAG, for example, has yet to recover $392,178 from former members of the Tinian Casino Gaming Control Commission for their outstanding travel advances in 2002. The Department of Labor has yet to collect from two companies $512,410 in nonresident worker application fees in 2005.

Public Auditor Michael Pai, in a Jan. 3 report on CNMI agencies’ implementation of audit recommendations as of June 30, 2011, also said that the number of recommendations without corrective actions increased by six or 19 percent—from 26 in 2010 to 31 in mid-2011.

During the first six months of 2011, OPA tracked 40 audit recommendations.

Of the 40 audit recommendations, four were closed and 36 remained either opened or resolved.

This meant that the Commonwealth Utilities Corp., Northern Marianas College, and the NMI Retirement Fund have either implemented or have taken alternative actions to address OPA’s recommendations.

Of the 36 open or resolved recommendations, 31 were considered delinquent.

Of the 31 delinquent recommendations, 13 were supposed to be corrected or acted on by OAG, 10 by the Department of Finance, four by the Department of Public Lands, two by the Department of Public Safety, and one each by the Commonwealth Ports Authority and NMC.

As of June 30, 2011, audit recommendations in seven audit reports were referred to OAG for legal action to recover monies improperly expended.

In these seven audit reports, some $2.6 million is potentially recoverable but the OAG did not provide OPA an update on these referral cases during OPA’s follow-up process. Therefore, the status of these referrals remains unchanged.

Rep. Frank Dela Cruz (R-Saipan) has been calling on OAG, as well as OPA, to be more aggressive in recovering money. Dela Cruz said it’s about time the CNMI has an elected attorney general rather than an appointed one.

OPA also identified potential recoveries of some $3.6 million in eight audit reports addressed to various agencies. From Jan. 1, 2011, to June 30, 2011, OPA did not receive updates from DPL. The Fund also informed OPA that the status of recovery of funds will be provided to OPA once their review is completed.

OPA also included 122 recommendations from 10 recent audit reports that private accounting firms recently issued.