By The Star Staff
The Central Office for Recovery, Reconstruction and Resilience (COR3) and the Office of the Comptroller of Puerto Rico (OCPR by its Spanish initials) signed a collaborative agreement this week that enables the exchange of information between the two government agencies in order to continue joining efforts among the entities responsible for monitoring compliance with laws and regulations in the contracting process.
“As anticipated, we established this memorandum to ensure that funds from programs subsidized by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) are properly and legally administered in accordance with planning, protocols or programs,” COR3 Executive Director Manuel A. Laboy Rivera said. “In this way, we unify efforts to strengthen the work carried out by the COR3 Compliance Division.”
As part of the agreement, the OCPR will provide access to the Registry of Contracts and the Registry of Notifications of Losses or Irregularities in the Management of Public Funds or Assets to COR3 personnel. COR3 will provide OCPR staff with access to the Disaster Recovery Solutions platform, which handles all aspects of their disaster recovery programs. Through those mutual accesses, the two parties will notify each other of any discrepancies that may be found as part of the examination of the registries and platforms they manage.
Comptroller Yesmín M. Valdivieso Galib said “having this data will facilitate the planning and definition of audit objectives, before reaching the entity, and will make audit processes more efficient.”
The collaborative agreement favors timely and adequate intervention in the prevention and investigation of situations that may represent fraud, waste, abuse, corruption and inefficiency in the administration of programs and operations of government entities. The comptroller noted that similar agreements have been made with the Puerto Rico Department of Housing, General Services Administration and the Department of Health (Demographic Registry), among other entities.