Summary: This is a publication by GAO's Inspector General that concerns internal GAO operations. In accordance with Section 5 of the Government Accountability Office Act of 2008 (GAO Act), this is the semiannual report for the second half of fiscal year 2009. During this period, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) continued to undertake a number of actions to implement requirements in the GAO Act and selected provisions in the Inspector General Reform Act of 2008. These actions included drafting a revised GAO order and policies and procedures, to incorporate our statutory role and responsibilities; making changes to GAO's intranet to improve visibility of the OIG and its hotline to employees and contractors; and participating in the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency.
We issued one report with recommendations (GAO/OIG-09-3): our evaluation of four of GAO's people performance measures--staff development, staff utilization, leadership, and organizational climate. Further, we initiated a review of the agency's timeliness measure, and based on methodological and other issues raised during our review, GAO has agreed that the issues are worthy of further examination and will be fully analyzed. As a result, we will monitor the changes made and reassess the measure when those changes are completed. We also completed an audit risk assessment of GAO to aid in our development of risk-based audit work plans. Regarding our efforts to identify potential fraud, waste, and abuse within GAO, we completed action on 6 open complaints from the prior semiannual report and received 42 inquiries and allegations this reporting period through our hotline and other sources. Because 28 of these 48 cases concerned matters related to other federal agencies, we closed them with a referral to GAO's FraudNet--a governmentwide hotline that receives complaints of fraud, waste, and abuse of federal funds--or, in one case, to the appropriate agency OIG. We closed an additional 12, which included potential misrepresentation of GAO or its officials and inquiries for information, because there was no basis for further action. We investigated and closed 6 other cases that involved complaints concerning GAO reports, employee misconduct, the abuse of and fraudulent charges on government travel cards, and misuse of GAO credentials by a former contractor employee. Because of our investigations, GAO suspended an employee for misconduct and has restricted the types of merchants or businesses where its travel cards can be used and thereby reduced the risk of fraud and abuse. In addition, GAO ensured the credentials of the former contractor employee were retrieved and destroyed. Lastly, at the end of the reporting period, two cases submitted during this reporting period remained open.
