Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — After learning about the ongoing abuse of the vehicle purchase policy by some Executive Branch agencies, Gov. Lolo Matalasi Moliga has directed the Procurement Office to provide within two weeks the list of all government vehicles that are on a lease-to-own status.

The governor’s request is outlined in an Oct. 22nd letter titled: Vehicle Purchase Policy, to executive branch cabinet directors. Copies of the letter have also been forwarded to leaders of ASG semi autonomous agencies.

Lolo said it has come to his attention that agencies have requested and received approval from Procurement, to allow vehicles to be leased with the intent to purchase.

This practice, said the governor, has been “abused” by some agencies, whereby at the end of the lease period — which coincides with full payment of the vehicle’s total price plus interest charges — the vehicle is then “registered as a personal property” of an individual and “not of the American Samoa Government”.

Lolo told directors that “this practice is to cease forthwith.”

“Accordingly, all leased vehicles are to be returned to the respective vendor if the remaining price of the leased vehicle cannot be fully paid,” Lolo told directors. “It is recommended that if funds are available to purchase the vehicle, pay the vendors and then register the vehicle as the property of the respective agency or department.”

Lolo also informed directors that ASG has been cited by the federal General Accounting Office for “failing to account for all vehicles purchased with federal funds.” The governor identified in his letter, the Department of Health, as “the dominant agency leasing vehicles and failing to account for federally funded vehicles under its administrative purview.”

In September last year, the US Interior Department’s Office of Inspector General (DOI-OIG) released results of its audit of the ASG Executive Branch internal controls for the use of government owned and leased vehicles. DOI-OIG determined that ASG did not have effective internal controls over the use of its vehicles.

The federal agency found, among other things, that ASG had no comprehensive and government-wide policy to regulate and monitor the use of government-owned and leased vehicles. As a result, the fleet of government vehicles is subject to misuse, misappropriation, theft, and other loss.

It also said ASG’s government-leased vehicles, which are typically acquired as a condition of certain federal grants, are not accounted for in the ASG Office of Property Management’s inventory for government vehicles.