Annual report, Office of the Inspector General

Abstract

The law which created the Department of Energy (DOE) also established within the Department an Office of Inspector General (IG). This office has statutory responsibilities relating to the promotion of efficiency and economy and the prevention or detection of fraud and abuse in the programs and operations of the Department. The first sections of this report take note of the relatively short time that the current senior IG officials have been on the job, and describe the office organizational structure that the new management team created in the last half of 1978. The next section discusses in some detail the most critical problem, the lack of sufficient staff to discharge the full range of statutory responsibilities. Subsequent sections deal with the activities of audits, investigations, and inspections units during 1978. Examples of significant problems encountered and corrective actions taken are given. The question of what is needed for IG to play a true leadership role in the Department's overall audit effort is also addressed. Then Departmental compliance with IG recommendations and the DOE program areas of unusually high vulnerability are discussed. Next, staff training efforts and a legal challenge to the subpoena power of the IG office are described. Finally,more » advance planning and some important IG goals for the coming year are addressed. (RWR)« less