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Govt cracks down on unliquidated advances
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Posted on Oct 23 2006
The CNMI government is finally taking action against employees who owe the Commonwealth for travel advances.
Acting Gov. Timothy P. Villagomez has ordered all government employees, board members, and other individuals who traveled on taxpayer funds and failed to liquidate the advances to contact the Department of Finance immediately. The travelers were told to make arrangements with the Finance Department to repay the advances.
“The Secretary of Finance will not approve any travel authorization requests by travelers with unliquidated travel advances,” Villagomez said.
DOF disclosed that the government was owed $1.5 million in outstanding travel advances as of May 31, 2006.
This was despite efforts taken by the department to collect from the travelers. The measures include implementing automated sub-ledgers for travel advance accounts; enforcing advance and voucher filing procedures so that new advances are not issued to any employee who has outstanding advances; making payroll deductions for late vouchers; and clearing old balances.
An independent audit conducted by Deloitte and Touche showed that unliquidated travel advances reached $2.6 million as of Sept. 30, 2005.
Nearly $1 million of the total amount remained unchanged when compared with the prior year. A review of the outstanding accounts also showed that some employees were refusing to submit travel authorizations and vouchers even after numerous requests by DOF.
Deloitte and Touche noted that the problem with liquidation of advances had been reported in single audits of the CNMI government for fiscal years 1987 through 2004.
The firm recommended that the government review all advances outstanding for more than one year, assess if they could still be collected, and write off any amounts deemed uncollectible.
