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Regional Aviation News
GAO Reports Abuse of FAA Purchasing Card
March 27 , 2003
Poor controls over FAA purchase cards led to more than $6 million in “improper, wasteful, or questionable” spending in 2001, the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) reported. The report blamed lax reviews and approvals, missing documentation, inadequate training and segregation of duties and insufficient monitoring for creating an “environment vulnerable to fraud, waste, and abuse.” The total includes $5.4 million in improper purchases, including some that were split into two or more parts to circumvent single purchase limits. Auditors considered another $630,000 in purchases wasteful or questionable. Many of the examples cited were gifts for staff performance or retirements.
Half the asset purchases GAO examined weren’t recorded in FAA’s property system, and the agency could not find or document more than a third of 692 items GAO was focusing on. One FAA location identifies more than 800 items, worth more than $2 million, that were lost or stolen in Fiscal Years 2001 and 2002. FAA responded that it has already taken several steps to address issues GAO raised, based on internal reviews and previous reviews. FAAsaid it is “tightening up program controls and improving program operation,” and has already acted on recommendations from this and previous reports. Last September, FAA clarified instructions to staff for using the card for retirement and farewell gifts, or performance awards. FAAstressed “the vast preponderance of the 364,000 annual [purchase card] transactions [is] appropriate.” -AS
Source: Aviation Daily, March 27, 2003
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