The director of the one D.C. agency with more buying power than any other has installed an internal audit division to root out the waste and fraud that has plagued it for years.
“I’m the first to admit that this type of process in government is absolutely ripe for mismanagement, and any type of mismanagement leads to a loss of public money,” said District Chief Procurement Officer David Gragan.
Gragan oversees the Office of Contracting and Procurement, which secures roughly $2 billion in goods and services a year for the D.C. government.
The agency has been routinely criticized by auditors for leaking millions of dollars, and Gragan acknowledged he lacks the ability to find the holes.
Esther Scarborough, former interim chief procurement officer, was named head of the new Office of Procurement Integrity and Compliance. Scarborough’s division will conduct audits, contract reviews and contract compliance monitoring.
There are lessons to be learned from the ongoing tax office scandal, Gragan said. Failed internal controls and ineffective auditing within the Office of Tax and Revenue allowed a pair of District employees to pilfer the treasury for nearly a decade, costing taxpayers at least $20 million.
“What I need to find out is what went off the tracks,” he said.
The D.C. Inspector General, D.C. Auditor and the U.S. Government Accountability Office have all issued audits in the last year slamming the contracting agency, exposing the loss of tens of millions of dollars.
The investigations have reported unjustified no-bid contracts, poor staff training, little contract administration, and deals awarded without proper approvals.
“I think you can give a crook ethics training from here to doomsday and you’re going to cause no change in that person,” D.C. Councilwoman Carol Schwartz said during a recent oversight hearing. “I don’t know if we can rehabilitate them on the job. But I think we can catch them on the job.”
