The Department of Energy needs better management controls for
some of its nuclear non-proliferation projects in Russia and
other countries, the Government Accountability Office has said.
Under the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2004 GAO
must assess the management of threat reduction and non-proliferation
programs administered by DoE by monitoring management controls
in place to make sure that work meets contractual specifications
and that payments go to contractors as intended.
While two NNSA offices, the Office of Nuclear Risk Reduction and
the Office of International Material Protection and Cooperation,
documented management controls for nearly all the contracts GAO
examined, a third, the Office of Nonproliferation and International
Security, had not documented most of its contracts as required.
The first two offices have procedural guidance in place that helps
managers maintain these controls, though one NNSA official reported
to GAO that none of the three offices perform periodic reviews to
ensure management controls remain appropriate, according to GAO
report GAO-05-828.
It said it was unable to determine if ONIS implements management
controls because for seven of the nine contracts documentation was
incomplete or there was no clear audit trail to follow.
“ONIS – or NA-24 – does not provide its contract managers with
procedural guidance on how to maintain its management controls,
nor does it perform a periodic review of its controls to ensure
the controls are effective and appropriate,” said GAO.
