Archive - February 2015

In her testimony on Tuesday of last week in a hearing on the Office of Office of Inspector General (OIG), 60-year old, Kathy A. Buller, the Peace Corps IG, said the agency [Peace Corps] continues to hamper her duties by invoking another law to inappropriately overrule her legal mandate. After her testimony in September, the Peace Corps did grant her office greater access to information, but she said that was only after “two years of discussions with the agency and members of Congress, two congressional hearings, negative press coverage, a hold being placed on the nomination of the Director, and, ultimately, the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the agency and OIG [Office of Inspector General].” “Much work remains to be done to undo the damage caused by these access-denying policies,” she added  It is ironic that Buller and the Peace Corps are the “point example” for misdeeds . . .

The Washington Post By Joe Davidson Columnist Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has said progress still needs to be made on clearing obstacles encountered by federal inspectors general. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP) February 1 at 6:57 PM It’s hard for inspectors general to be watchdogs when chained by their agencies. IG employees investigate waste, fraud and other things that go wrong in federal places. They often work in the same buildings and eat in the same cafeterias as those they investigate, yet they stand apart. While legally under the supervision of an agency’s top boss, the IG is not supervised by that boss. IGs are designed by law to be independent and agencies are not permitted to interfere with their investigations. So it was extraordinary when 47 inspectors general, about two-thirds of the lot, wrote to Capitol Hill in August to complain that interference . . .