| 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 October
1, 2003 through March 31, 2004. During this period, we spent
time discussing where we are as an office and where we want
to be, resulting in Mission, Values and Vision statements
that are unique to our office. When accomplishing audit and
investigative work, we will ensure that it accords with our
mission to be an “independent and objective voice for
Congress, the Board of Directors and PBGC.” We want
to focus our work on the challenges facing PBGC, and to be
the primary source of timely and objective information. We
will accomplish our work demonstrating our values of Respect,
Excellence and Integrity.
In the
audit area, our work included:
- Governance
issues: working with the Board of Directors, Executive management
(see page 3);
- Financial
Management: issuing the independent public accountant’s
Financial Statement Audit Opinion, and Management Letters,
and accelerated financial statement reporting (see page
4);
- Program
Operations: issuing a report and participating on teams
to address premium accounting issues, and completing work
to review field benefit administration offices (see page
8);
- Information
Technology Security: submitting the OMB-mandated response
on the agency’s progress (see page 10); and
- Continuity
of Operations: finding significant progress (see page 10).
In the
investigative area, we continued implementation of our new
allegation evaluation system. 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. We received thirty-five (35) Inquiries,
of which five (5) became cases. We closed twelve (12) cases
and twenty (20) inquiries during the reporting period. Among
the significant investigative work conducted this period,
we:
- Found
that a senior level employee engaged in ethical misconduct
(see page 18);
- Found
that a individual obtained bank routing information from
PBGC’s website and debited PBGC’s account using
on-line resources (see page 18);
- Closed
6 cases related to pension benefit fraud (see page 18).
Another highlight of this period is staff changes, including
the appointments of:
- A new
Assistant Inspector General for Audit Luther Atkins, formerly
with the State Department OIG.
- A new
Assistant Inspector General for Investigations, Tom Zigan.
more...
|
