‘Fraud, waste and abuse,” a phrase that pops up frequently in government critiques, describes a problem that can be hard to prove, as a legal matter.

But when there are bright red flags going up after studying a government agency — in this case, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs — it’s time for the officials in charge to take the issue seriously. They must take action promptly, rather than wait for someone to nail down the absolute proof of misdeeds.

Even if there turns out to be no fire, there’s an awful lot of smoke to investigate. CliftonLarsonAllen (CLA), the national accounting firm commissioned to do an independent report on transactions of OHA and its contractors, flagged 17% of 185 contracts and disbursements it examined as having the “potential” problems.

That’s quite a fire alarm being sounded about a sizable sum: Those transactions amount to $7.8 million, covering a period from 2012 to 2016, according to the report published Dec. 4.

In response, the agency’s Board of Trustees at least has shown the official resolve of voting to have the OHA administration analyze it and plan how the recommended changes should be carried out.

However, based on the initial reactions, the trustees don’t seem particularly chastened by those troubling findings — when they should be.

“While this report observed indicators of potential fraud, waste or abuse, it did not identify actual instances of fraud, waste and abuse,” said OHA Chairwoman Colette Machado and Trustee Dan Ahuna, who chairs the board’s Committee on Resource Management.

While technically true, that doesn’t capture the whole picture. The executive summary of the report itself acknowledges the limitations of its scope: It “does not constitute an audit, compilation or review, in accordance with standards of the AICPA (American Institute of Certified Public Accountants).

“Because our engagement was limited to the matters described in the contract, fraud and/or financial irregularities may exist within the organization that we may not have identified during the performance of our procedures,” according to the report.

But some of the examples it cited plainly illustrate where some weak links could lie, and where there should be concern about running a much tighter ship at OHA.

Here’s just one example: A $185,000 contract in 2012 for Absolute Plus Advisors, for financial advisory services. A contract amendment was executed five months after the contract date, and no documents were on hand to show the firm did its contractual job.

Another note concerned 33 grants that were missing evidence that OHA had verified that applicants met requirements that guard against nepotism and conflicts of interest; there was a lack of progress and monitoring reports on other grants, numerous other due-diligence shortcomings identified in the record.

And in an especially distressing case, a $150,000 disbursement for a lease guaranty OHA signed was split in two payments, which required easier approvals.

These kinds of fiscal sloppiness and manipulation ought to concern OHA beneficiaries, who reasonably may worry that the trust fund meant to help them is part of a system that leaks like a sieve.

The report was conducted in response to a call for an independent audit made by Trustee Keli‘i Akina. In response, Akina acknowledged that CLA was not tasked with finding actual fraud (“Only a court of law can make that final determination,” he wrote).

However, he correctly described the report as a “roadmap of issues to resolve.” As such, it must be consulted for guidance on the necessary course correction, and not languish on a back shelf someplace, gathering dust.