The Treasury Department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) said in a new information memorandum that IT Acquisition, and Project Management and Cyber Threats, remain from the previous year as two of five management and performance challenges for the agency.
The report – prepared in accordance with the Reports Consolidation Act of 2000 – provides the OIG’s perspective on “the most serious management and performance challenges” facing Treasury. The OIG identified six total challenges, five of which “are repeated and updated from last year to include COVID-19 impacts on related workforce and work streams.”
The five identified challenges repeated from last year include:
- IT Acquisition and Project Management;
- Cyber Threats;
- Operating in an Uncertain Environment;
- Anti-Money Laundering/Terrorist Financing and Back Secrecy Act Enforcement; and
- Efforts to Promote Spending Transparency and to Prevent and Detect Improper Payments.
The newest and sixth challenges identified by OIG is COVIVD-19 Pandemic Relief. Along with these challenges, OIG reported elevated concerns about the coin redemption program at the U.S. Mint, managerial cost accounting, and internal control matters at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.
“We identified challenges and concerns based on the threat they pose to Treasury’s mission and stakeholders’ interests,” OIG said. “We also acknowledge the Department’s accomplishments and efforts over the past year to address critical matters as noted within each challenge. That said, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a global health emergency and an ensuing economic crisis that Treasury has spent the second half of fiscal year 2020 tackling.”
