The FCC Office of Inspector Gen. (OIG) made ’significant progress...
The FCC Office of Inspector Gen. (OIG) made “significant progress” in designing and carrying out its Universal Service Fund (USF) oversight program, but “more work remains to be done,” OIG said in a semiannual report to Congress. “The primary…
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obstacle to implementation of effective, independent oversight has been a lack of adequate resources to conduct audits and provide audit support to investigations,” OIG said: “This lack of resources has prevented us from completing the body of work necessary to assess fraud, waste and abuse at the program level.” But progress has been made. OIG added 2 people, bringing to 5 the number of employees dedicated to USF oversight, and expects to get 2 more. OIG said it sought $3.17 million for USF oversight in the FY2006 budget and began to explore alternatives for getting contract audit support. “Through our participation in the fourth large-scale round of E-rate beneficiary audits with USAC and through audits that we anticipate conducting under our 3-way agreement with USAC we are moving forward to evaluate the state of the program and identify opportunities for programmatic improvements,” OIG said.