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OAS Permanent Council Receives External Auditors Report for 2011

The Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS) today heard the annual report from the Board of External Auditors for the year 2011 from the President of the Board of Auditors, James L. Millette, who presented the highlights of the report, which states that "the most significant problem is that the OAS still has not solved the structural imbalance between contributions, income and expenses."

Millette, Assistant Secretary of State for Resource Management and Chief Financial Officer of the United States State Department, presented the report during an ordinary session of the organization at its headquarters in Washington, DC. The document presents a series of recommendations to the OAS, among which one reads “Member States have to agree to contributions that allow costs resulting from inflation to be covered, in addition to being aware that the determination of the costs and mandates, whether new or previous, must be done with great care.”

The report also notes the need for Member States to make decisions regarding the management of real estate, referring specifically to the Casa del Soldado and the convenience of selling this property to seek financial balances, while noting that "that implementation of administrative and management reforms have yet to be completed.”

The Secretary General of the OAS, José Miguel Insulza, welcomed the report and called on Member States to address the need to resolve the budget crossroads that affect the organization: reduce mandates to cut costs or increase the quotas that countries pay to cover the constant growth of expenditures.

"The question is simple," said the Secretary General. "Here it comes to deciding what we do not do. We go on as if this problem didn’t exist. We only remembered this on a day like today, when the annual audit report is presented: we get together and do the same ceremony, and the next day everything remains the same," he added.

The OAS leader also noted the need for countries to meet their quota commitments, which is essential for the organization to maintain its normal functions. "We can not determine whether this year countries will pay that did not pay last year or before. Or who will pay next year," said Secretary General Insulza. This fact, he added, is fundamental for planning, because "I can not make a budget pretending that these countries will pay.”

The chief representative of the OAS mentioned the need for the organization to sell the Casa del Soldado, an office building in Washington, DC whose maintenance is costly. This proposal is not new, he said, "but there is always someone who argues that it is a historic building and cannot be touched." To close his argument, Insulza added that "this historic building costs us more than it would to rent offices in the center of the city for all the staff" who work there.

The report, available here was approved by the Permanent Council with no objections from the Permanent Representatives of Member States.

At the same meeting of the Council, the Permanent Representatives approved the procedure and timetable to discuss the Strategic Vision of the Organization submitted in January by the Secretary General. Thus, the Working Group on the Review of Programs of the OAS should be submitted by June 15 a compilation of current mandates entrusted to the Organization. Based on this document, the Permanent Executive Committee of the Inter-American Council for Integral Development (CEPCIDI) should develop early than July 30 a proposal for prioritization of mandates.

A gallery of photos of the event is available here.

For more information, please visit the OAS Website at www.oas.org.

Reference: E-154/12