|
This semiannual
report to the Congress summarizes the activities and accomplishments
of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) Office
of Inspector General (OIG) for the period April 1, 2003 through
September 30, 2003. When planning and accomplishing our work,
our new Inspector General challenged staff to consider how
our audit and investigative reports will be used by management
to improve PBGC's programs and operations. We renewed our
focus to identify the challenges facing PBGC, conduct work
to address them and provide timely information. The OIG's
mission is to be a catalyst for positive change and we can
do that through audit, evaluation and investigative reports,
as well as consulting with PBGC and participating on Corporate
teams and working groups.
In the
audit area, we solicited input from the Board of Directors
and senior managers when planning our work. The management
challenges we worked on this period include:
- Governance
issues, working with the Board of Directors, Executive management
and the General Accounting Office (see page 3);
- Financial
Management, focusing on the Financial Statement Management
Letter and accelerated financial statement reporting (see
page 4);
- Program
Operations, identifying and participating on teams to address
premium accounting issues and beginning work to review field
benefit administrators offices (see page 6);
- Information
Technology Security, submitting the OMB-mandated response
on the agency's progress and internal network penetration
testing (see page 7); and
- Continuity
of Operations, finding significant progress (see page 8).
In the
investigative area, we developed a new investigative process.
Acknowledging that with a small investigative staff we cannot
conduct a full investigation of every allegation reported
to the OIG, we developed new case criteria. Every allegation
will be assigned an "Inquiry" number and reviewed
to determine whether we can refer the matter to management
to address and report back to the OIG on its actions. Our
goal is to systematically and timely address each allegation,
open only the highest priority cases that we agree should
be worked based on our criteria, and for which we have the
resources to conduct a full investigation.
Using
our new process, we closed a number of old cases. We received
thirty-three (33) Inquiries, of which one became a case. We
closed twenty-three (23) cases and eight (8) inquiries during
the reporting period. Among the significant investigative
work conducted this period, we:
- Found
that a senior level employee engaged in a pattern ethics
violations and misconduct (see page 14);
- Found
that a participant's monthly pension check had been diverted
for 9 years after he moved to Jamaica, resulting in his
receiving more than $16,000 in back pay (see page 14);
- Closed
five cases related to pension benefit fraud, among which
we referred two cases for criminal prosecution, one of which
involved an estate executor who failed to notify PBGC of
the beneficiary's death (see page 14).
more...
|
