Follow-up Audit of Nonproliferation and Disarmament Fund Controls Over Contracting and Project Management and Integrity of Financial Data

OIG recommends that the Nonproliferation and Disarmament Fund provide contracting officer representatives a written notification of the requirement to complete the Certification of Deliverables form.

OIG recommends that the Nonproliferation and Disarmament Fund update its policy on the use of notwithstanding authority to require that the specific provisions within the laws and regulations for which the authority is used be identified and documented and, if practicable, add additional fields in its information management system to align documentation requirements with the current policy.

OIG recommends that the Nonproliferation and Disarmament Fund (NDF) develop and implement a plan to train all NDF staff on how to use the functionality of its information management system to manage projects.

OIG recommends that the Nonproliferation and Disarmament Fund develop and implement a control to demonstrate that project managers are monitoring and documenting project progress in a timely manner. For example, project managers could be required to document the reason for the lack of progress if "Next Actions" are not updated for 3 consecutive months.

OIG recommends that the Nonproliferation and Disarmament Fund add a date field in the "Next Actions" area of the information management system to assist the Chief of Operations in monitoring project progress.

OIG recommends that the Nonproliferation and Disarmament Fund assess the existing procedures for entering project schedule and deliverable information into the information management system and determine whether the procedures are the most efficient and effective manner to monitor project schedule.

OIG recommends that the Nonproliferation and Disarmament Fund revise its document maintenance and retention guidelines to provide clear instructions on how and where to store all required project-related documents.

OIG recommends that the Nonproliferation and Disarmament Fund develop standard timeframes for the project closeout processes that occur prior to the submission of the Action Memo and implement a policy to document that these timeframes are met or delays are explained.

OIG recommends that the Nonproliferation and Disarmament Fund (NDF) develop and implement a) an automated process to reconcile financial data in its information management system to the financial data in the Global Financial Management System on a periodic basis and b) requirements for documenting and reviewing the reconciliation. If an automated process is not possible, NDF should develop a manual process that captures all transactions in both systems over a period of time.

OIG recommends that the Nonproliferation and Disarmament Fund revise its policies regarding the contracting process when donated funds are used to require that the funds are recorded to a separate contract line item number.

OIG recommends that the Nonproliferation and Disarmament Fund develop and implement a process to review annually the permissions of information management system users and verify that all users have only one profile and the privileges of that profile are consistent with their assigned job functions and responsibilities as documented in the April 2013 user access matrix.