Investigation into missing thousands of dollars at Pohnpei Supreme Court

By Bill Jaynes The Kaselehlie Press June 23, 2014 Pohnpei, FSM—

In February, Pohnpei auditors discovered that the Pohnpei Supreme Court had remitted to Pohnpei Treasury only $302 of the $29,614.50 it collected in fees. The discovery came as part of a surprise cash count inspection of the Pohnpei “collection points”—the units where revenue is collected. Of the six Pohnpei collection points, including Pohnpei’s Treasury, only the Department of Agriculture revolving fund was excluded from February’s surprise inspection.

Pohnpei’s Office of the Public Auditor (OPA) had already conducted and released an audit report that showed discrepancies in that department. The cash counts for the Office of Fisheries and Aquaculture, the Pohnpei State Hospital, and Community Health Centers came up clean. “Admirably so,” said Ihlen Joseph, Pohnpei’s Public Auditor. 

The cash count inspection at the Supreme Court raised alarm bells. As a result, Mr. Joseph ordered a deeper inspection of the Supreme Court’s cash receipts and remittances to Pohnpei Treasury. That deeper inspection revealed that in nearly four and a half years the Supreme Court had collected a total of $167,716.75 but had remitted only $43,859.50 to Pohnpei’s Treasury during that time. “The sum of $123,857.25 was found missing and could not be accounted for,” said an official letter from the Office of the Public Auditor to Fernando Scaliem, the Speaker of the 8th Pohnpei Legislature. The letter was stamped “confidential” but was hand delivered to The Kaselehlie Press last week by an employee of the OPA. On the next day, another employee of OPA called to be sure that we had received the letter to the Speaker. Today Mr. Joseph personally confirmed that he was the one who had decided that the matter needed to be made public and so had personally instructed his staff members to deliver the letter to us. He also told us that he had asked Speaker Scaliem to share his letter with the members of the 8th Legislature. 

“It should be noted that 1400 plus copies of cash receipts were missing and could not be found in the Supreme Court’s files”, the letter said. “We could not assess or confirm whether the missing receipts were issued or voided. If in fact they were issued, then it is very likely that the amount of the missing and unaccounted monies may be higher than reported herein.” 

On behalf of Chief Justice Benjamin Rodriguez, the Supreme Court’s legal counsel returned our call of last week during which we requested an interview with the Chief Justice. He said that the Court is conducting an ongoing internal investigation on the cash count inspection. He further said that insofar as all previous interdepartmental correspondences on the matter have been confidential, the court will not be issuing a statement on it until the Public Auditor makes the matter public. 

Mr. Joseph said that his office has submitted a “thick stack” of documentary evidence to the Pohnpei Attorney General’s office and has recommended prosecutorial action. “We consider the findings significant and are recommending criminal investigation and prosecution for those found responsible for the missing and unaccounted funds,” his letter to Speaker Scaliem said.