An IG report has criticized how GSA, the agency that runs the government-wide purchase card and travel card programs, operates those programs itself, deeming the former type of card at high risk of misuse there and the latter type at moderate risk.
That was no improvement over the prior assessment under the Government Charge Card Abuse Prevention Act of 2012 and OMB implementing guidance, the report said.
Regarding purchase cards, the report noted that some 800 GSA employees are active cardholders, charging nearly $28 million in fiscal 2015—99 percent of that under the micro-purchase threshold of $3,000. GSA has policies in place to ensure purchase card transactions are supported and approved, it said, but cardholders are not consistently following those procedures, nor are approving officials.
While GSA runs monthly key word queries to identify questionable purchase card transactions, “controls to review questionable purchase card transactions were ineffective” due to lack of follow-up review of questionable charges. And while it has policies to prevent split transactions to keep purchases under the micro-purchase threshold, GSA did not review transactions for possible violations of procurement regs.
Similarly, it found that GSA “does not have assurance that travel cards are used exclusively for approved travel expenses due to a lack of supporting documentation within its travel management system.” Controls to both identify and review questionable transactions were deemed “ineffective” and GSA does not conduct the refresher training for cardholders as required by the OMB guidance, it said.
