While there’s no sign of fraud, there were instances of waste found as well as $788,000 in questioned credit card and purchase card charges at the University of Guam mainly over a lack of compliance with UOG policies and government procurement law, the Office of Public Accountability said.
The questioned cost at UOG is the largest so far since OPA started auditing the government of Guam’s use of credit and debit cards in 2023.
Other GovGuam agencies’ questioned costs ranged only from $10,000 to $71,000, versus UOG’s $788,000.
“Our audit did not identify any indications of fraud, however, we identified instances of waste due to UOG’s lack of justification for purchases made with the credit and purchase cards,” OPA said in its latest audit report released on Monday.
UOG does not have a written agency-wide policy governing the use of credit cards, but has one only for purchase cards, OPA found.
The public auditor’s office found that UOG has a total of 30 credit cards and purchase cards with a total spending of about $2.9 million from October 2019 to September 2023.
Public Auditor Benjamin J.F. Cruz said the audit revealed that UOG’s lack of written agency-wide credit card policy, enforcement of its procurement regulations, strict internal controls, and proper training on credit and purchase card use, resulted in “significant” non-compliance with:
- the Guam Procurement Law
- UOG’s Procurement Regulations
- UOG’s related policies and procedures
“The findings highlight the need for a better understanding of procurement regulations among credit and purchase cardholders and the importance of adhering to formal processes to avoid mismanagement of funds,” Cruz said in a statement.
In areas where OPA found noncompliance, it recommended corrective actions to improve and strengthen UOG’s internal controls for its credit card and purchase card programs to enhance oversight and compliance, “such as creating an agency-wide credit card policy and training personnel involved in the credit card and purchase card and procurement processes,” Cruz added.
UOG suspends credit card use
OPA provided a draft report to UOG for its official management response on May 28.
On June 13, UOG wrote to OPA, acknowledging the seriousness of the findings.
About two hours after OPA publicly released the audit report on Monday, UOG issued a statement about the immediate actions it has taken, including “suspending all credit and purchase card activity.”
UOG President Anita Borja Enriquez issued a memo on June 6 regarding a credit card and purchase card use suspension “until this situation can be further addressed, and additional training can be scheduled.”
On Monday, UOG said it’s also consolidating policies and reassessing the structure of its credit card program.
“While the audit did not identify any fraud or misuse of funds, it noted instances where internal controls and compliance procedures were not consistently followed,” UOG said on Monday, acknowledging OPA’s findings.
UOG held a mandatory retraining for all cardholders and responsible staff on July 2.
From gas to gifts
OPA found a total of 17 audit findings.
For example, UOG had card purchases without evidence of budget availability or the cards were used to buy ineligible items such as gifts or vehicle gas or to pay for training.
The questioned costs represent 27% of UOG’s total card spending, and they’re 97% of samples tested.
OPA said UOG does not have an overarching written credit card policy governing the use of its 14 credit cards under the College of Natural and Applied Sciences, Marine Lab, Bookstore, and Business Office for general operations and travel.
The public auditor’s office also said that using a credit card for purchases is merely a convenient payment method and “does not” relieve the cardholder from adhering to UOG’s procurement regulations and the Guam Procurement Law.
UOG president: Funds managed responsibly
UOG’s Enriquez, in a statement on Monday, said the university earned its 15th consecutive clean audit this year, “which affirms that our financial reporting is accurate and public funds are being managed responsibly.”
“A separate OPA credit card audit found no fraud or misuse of funds, and we take the recommendations seriously. We have already begun implementing corrective actions to strengthen our internal controls and procedures,” she said.
OPA’s audit of UOG credit and purchase card use was included in its 2023 annual audit plan, citing the inherent risk of using credit and debit cards as a convenient payment method.
This is the sixth in a series of reports related to credit card use in the government of Guam.
Specific audit findings included:
- Lack of justification or determination of need for purchases.
- Lack of cost savings or product unavailability for off-island purchases.
- Many purchases lack written quotations/Unable to determine if the award was made to the lowest acceptable quotation.
- Lack of evidence of budget availability before credit and purchase cards used.
- Many purchases lack required purchase orders.
- No evidence documents were forwarded to the Business Office for reconciliation.
- Documentation provided does not support approvals of the payment request forms
- Purchase cards used for unallowed charges.
- Missing and incomplete supporting documentation.
- Lack of monitoring and oversight over purchase card charges.
- Travel authorizations improperly approved.
- No evidence per diem checks issued properly.
- Travel clearances not provided.
- Advance payments made for on-island purchases prohibited by law and regulation.
- Travel awards given under the Government Mileage Law.
Under Guam law, 100% of accrued air travel mileage that UOG accrued shall be used to send eligible students to participate at off-island academic activities, but OPA audit found 14 instances where UOG gave travel miles for displacement due to Typhoon Mawar in June 2023 and four given to attend a baseball tournament in July 2023.
“We recommend UOG adhere to the Government Travel Law to ensure that travel awarded to eligible students are for off-island academic activities,” OPA added.
(5) comments
Defund the university and use the funds to offer performing students loans to get degrees elsewhere that they can also pay back by working in Guam for a decade or so.
What a disgraceful performance by Enriquez and her underlings.
If you check the dates, the audit covered a timeframe before Dr. Enriquez as president. This report reflected neither her performance or her supervision of subordinates.
Repeal that 5.7 million that was an unfunded appropriation for payroll that UOG begged for and have them figure out how to pay them credit card bills...waste of taxpayers dollars.
October 2019 to September 2023. This was when Kris was president.
Welcome to the discussion.
Log In
Keep it Clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Don't Threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be Truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be Nice. No racism, sexism or any sort of -ism that is degrading to another person.
Be Proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
Share with Us. We'd love to hear eyewitness accounts, the history behind an article.