Improvements are needed to the internal management controls over financial reporting for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, GAO has said.
It identified two significant deficiencies in OFS’s internal control over financial reporting concerning accounting and financial reporting processes and verification procedures over the data used for asset valuations that it said are the result of control deficiencies.
For example, OFS did not effectively implement its review and approval process for preparing its fiscal 2009 financial statements and related disclosures for TARP, and OFS did not have proper segregation of duties over a significant accounting database it uses in valuing its assets in that the same individual was responsible for performing both the data entry and the reconciliation of the data output, according to GAO-10-743R.
It said however that OFS had developed and implemented other controls over TARP transactions and activities that reduced the risk of material misstatements resulting from these deficiencies.