Inspector General

Through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (“IIJA”) and the Inflation Reduction Act, the Department of Energy (“DOE”) has awarded billions of dollars to a series of new infrastructure and clean energy programs.  The scope and size of these programs have, in turn, attracted scrutiny from the DOE’s Office of Inspector General (“OIG”), as evidenced most recently by an OIG Special Report (“Report”) detailing what the OIG characterized as “Management Challenges” at DOE.  The Report is notable for several reasons, but most striking is its sharp criticism of DOE’s apparent reluctance to fully accede to the OIG’s request for vast quantities of agency and contractor data in connection with preventative fraud detection efforts.  This blog will cover the key findings of this Report and the most important takeaways for current and prospective DOE implementing partners.Continue Reading Department of Energy Office of Inspector General Management Challenges Report: Key Findings and Insights

On July 25, the GSA’s Office of Inspector General (“OIG”) published a report summarizing its audit of the GSA Transactional Data Reporting (“TDR”) pilot program.  That ongoing pilot program, which we have covered previously and have been tracking since the beginning, allows participating Federal Supply Schedule (“FSS”) contract-holders to report government-sales data each month, in exchange for relief from regulations that would require them to disclose their commercial sales practices.  According to the OIG report, however, GSA cannot objectively measure whether the TDR program is working as intended, because the pilot lacks specific objectives and performance targets.  Moreover, the data that GSA has collected from TDR participants is “not available for . . .  evaluation of the pilot.”  Although the Federal Acquisition Service (“FAS”) disagreed with some of the report’s findings, the report suggests that the TDR program remains a work-in-progress.
Continue Reading OIG Report Criticizes GSA’s TDR Pilot Program

The Inspector General (“IG”) of the Department of Defense issued a report on October 1, 2015, sharply criticizing the performance of Defense Contract Management Agency (“DCMA”) contracting officers.  In a sample of 21 business system deficiency reports (collected from the 164 reports filed between July 2012 and June 2013) the IG investigation found none that fully complied with DCMA’s obligations under the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement.  The overwhelming majority of the reports were deficient in multiple respects, and many of them were severely untimely.

Should government contractors celebrate this public admonishment from the IG?  Probably not.

Although the investigation alleges serious lapses in the timeliness and sufficiency of DCMA’s reports, it rests on the presumption that DCMA needs to be more aggressive in identifying and correcting deficiencies.  The report does not suggest, for example, that the DCMA’s delays result from overzealous investigations or excessive focus on insignificant concerns.  Instead, the report calls for reforms that would increase the incentives for DCMA contracting officers and Defense Contract Audit Agency (“DCAA”) auditors to take swift, aggressive action.    
Continue Reading Defense IG’s Criticism of DCMA Is Cold Comfort for Government Contractors