U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402–0001

77–918 PDF 2002

THE U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT: WHAT MUST BE DONE TO RESOLVE

USAID’S LONGSTANDING FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS?

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY,

FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT AND

INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

MAY 8, 2001

Serial No. 107–53

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York

CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

STEPHEN HORN, California

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

BOB BARR, Georgia

DAN MILLER, Florida

DOUG OSE, California

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

DAVE WELDON, Florida

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

C.L. ‘‘BUTCH’’ OTTER, Idaho

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

——— ———

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,

DC

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

JIM TURNER, Texas

THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

——— ———

——— ———

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

KEVIN BINGER, Staff Director

DANIEL R. MOLL, Deputy Staff Director

JAMES C. WILSON, Chief Counsel

ROBERT A. BRIGGS, Chief Clerk

PHIL SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY, FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT AND

INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS

STEPHEN HORN, California, Chairman

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

DAN MILLER, Florida

DOUG OSE, California

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

EX OFFICIO

DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

J. RUSSELL GEORGE, Staff Director and Chief Counsel

EARL PIERCE, Professional Staff Member

GRANT NEWMAN, Clerk

MARK STEPHENSON, Minority Professional Staff Member

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on May 8, 2001 ................................................................................. 1

Statement of:

Mosley, Everett L., Inspector General, U.S. Agency for International Development, accompanied by Bruce N. Crandlemire, Deputy Assistant

Inspector General for Audit; Richard Nygard, Acting Assistant Administrator for Management U.S. Agency for International Development,

accompanied by Michael T. Smokovich, Chief Financial Officer; and

Elmer S. Owens, Deputy Chief Financial Officer for Policy and Credit

Programs ........................................................................................................ 6

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Horn, Hon. Stephen, a Representative in Congress from the State of

California, prepared statement of ................................................................ 3

Mosley, Everett L., Inspector General, U.S. Agency for International Development, prepared statement of ............................................................... 10

Nygard, Richard, Acting Assistant Administrator for Management U.S.

Agency for International Development, prepared statement of ................ 25

Owens, Elmer S., Deputy Chief Financial Officer for Policy and Credit

Programs, information concerning administrative receivables ................. 31

(1)

THE U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT: WHAT MUST BE DONE TO RESOLVE USAID’S LONGSTANDING FINANCIAL

MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS?

TUESDAY, MAY 8, 2001

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY, FINANCIAL

MANAGEMENT AND INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 11:18 a.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Stephen Horn (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Horn, Putnam, and Schakowsky.

Staff present: J. Russell George, staff director and chief counsel;

Dianne Guensberg, detailee; Bonnie Heald, director of communications; Earl Pierce, professional staff member; Grant Newman, assistant to the committee; Alex Hurowitz, intern; Mark Stephenson,

minority professional staff member; and Jean Gosa, minority assistant clerk.

Mr. HORN. A quorum being present this hearing of the Subcommittee on Government Efficiency, Financial Management and

Intergovernmental Relations will come to order. We’re here today

to continue our examination of how Federal departments and agencies in the executive branch of the government account for the billions of taxpayer dollars they spend each year. This morning the

subcommittee examined financial management efforts at the government’s largest agency in terms of people and budget. Now we

will examine one of the government’s smaller agencies, the U.S.

Agency for International Development. Similar to the Department

of Defense for the 5th consecutive year, the Agency for International Development has had such significant problems with its financial systems that it was unable to produce financial statements

that auditors could certify as reliable.

Also, similar to the Department of Defense, the Agency again received the unacceptable grade of F on the subcommittee’s annual

report card on Federal financial management.

In this hearing, we will focus on what actions must be taken to

resolve these financial management issues. The U.S. Agency for

International Development provides nonmilitary international aid

to further U.S. interests abroad. The agency focuses on six principal areas: economic growth and development, population health

2

and nutrition, environment, democracy and governance, education

and training, and humanitarian assistance.

The agency provides aid primarily through grants and loan guarantees to foreign governments and to humanitarian organizations.

Although small by Federal Government standards, the operations

of the Agency for International Development are substantial. The

Agency for International Development receives appropriated funds

of about $7 billion annually, and manages and estimated $10 billion in outstanding loans. An estimated $4 billion of that amount

is believed to be uncollectible. Furthermore, the Agency estimates

it may be required to pay out $1.1 billion in defaulted agency guaranteed loans made by other entities. The Agency’s inability to properly account for these asset liabilities and costs is frankly intolerable.

For fiscal year 2000, USAID’s Inspector General was unable to

provide an opinion on the reasonableness of amounts reported in

the Agency’s financial statements. The Inspector General also

found that the Agency had significant weaknesses in its system of

internal controls and did not comply with Federal financial management laws and regulations. Although many improvements have

been made, the Inspector General reported that agency systems

and processes still do not provide reliable financial information on

a regular basis.

Now we have a new administration, which hopefully will focus

close attention on the U.S. Agency for International Development

and its continuing inability to address these long-standing financial

management problems.

We welcome our witnesses today. The Honorable Evert Mosley,

Inspector General of the U.S. Agency for International Development; Richard Nygard, Acting Assistant Administrator for Management of U.S. Agency for International Development.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Stephen Horn follows:]

3

4

5

Mr. HORN. Gentlemen, we look forward to your testimony, your

insight and your recommendations to resolve these financial management problems at the U.S. Agency for International Development. I will now yield for an opening statement to the ranking

member of the subcommittee, and that is the gentlewoman from Illinois, Ms. Schakowsky.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome to

our witnesses. The Subcommittee on Government Efficiency, Financial Management and Intergovernmental Relations is in the

process of examining financial management issues in a number of

troubled agencies. Last month we began the series of hearings with

an inspection of the consolidated financial statement of the United

States. The U.S. Agency for International Development is one of

three agencies which has been unable to produce auditable financial statements since that requirement became law 4 years ago.

USAID was created in 1961 to advance the foreign policy interests

of the United States by promoting sustainable development and

providing humanitarian assistance, goals which I strongly support.

In fact, I have been a beneficiary of one session of training with

USAID on international disaster. I keep my FOG guide on my

desk. You never know what’s going to happen. I have got all the

instructions right there. So I do support the work that you do. It

has an overseas presence in more than 70 countries. And again, I

had the pleasure of going with Brady Anderson on the trip with the

President to visit some sites in India that USAID supports, 42 of

which have formal missions in fiscal year 2000. USAID has a total

obligation authority of $7.5 billion. USAID’s international mandate

causes financial management challenges unique to this agency.

This must not, however, be an excuse for lack of improvement because better financial management will ultimately mean resources

more efficiently dedicated to their intended worthwhile purposes.

I’m therefore glad that there appears to be some improvement in

the financial management of USAID as the Agency’s Inspector

General has said in his written statement, ‘‘USAID has made

progress toward resolving some long-standing problems with its financial management systems and has committed significant resources for additional improvements necessary for preparing

auditable financial statements as well as information to use for

managing operations.’’ These are encouraging words from the

Agency’s independent watchdog. I urge the Agency’s senior management to continue to devote serious attention and resources to

correcting the financial management concerns at USAID. Thank

you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HORN. Let me explain, since many of you have not appeared

before this subcommittee, we will administer the oath, all testimony is under oath in this investigating committee. When I call on

you the full text of your written testimony will be immediately put

in the record at that point. If you could summarize it between 5

and 10 minutes, it would be appreciated, because we can then get

down to the questions. And those are the ones that each member

has dear feelings about; and they should.

So if you will stand and raise your right hand, we’ll swear you

all in. If there are any assistants in back of you that might whisper

6

to you, have them put up their right hand too. The clerk will take

their names and put them in the hearing at this point.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. HORN. The five witnesses have taken the oath. We will now

start here, and we’ll begin with the Inspector General, the Honorable Everett L. Mosley.

STATEMENTS OF EVERETT L. MOSLEY, INSPECTOR GENERAL,

U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, ACCOMPANIED BY BRUCE N. CRANDLEMIRE, DEPUTY ASSISTANT

INSPECTOR GENERAL FOR AUDIT; RICHARD NYGARD, ACTING ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR FOR MANAGEMENT U.S.

AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, ACCOMPANIED BY MICHAEL T. SMOKOVICH, CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER; AND ELMER S. OWENS, DEPUTY CHIEF FINANCIAL

OFFICER FOR POLICY AND CREDIT PROGRAMS

Mr. MOSLEY. Mr. Chairman, other committee members and committee staff, good morning and thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today, along with Mr. Nygard, who is representing

agency management. I have with me today Mr. Bruce Crandlemire,

who is our Deputy Assistant Inspector General for Audit with responsibility for the financial audit process at the U.S. Agency for

International Development. We’re pleased to be here today to provide testimony and answer questions on the results of the Office of

Inspector General’s audit of USAID’s fiscal year 2000 financial

statements and actions needed to correct longstanding problems in

USAID’s financial management systems. As documented, we were

unable to render opinion on USAID’s annual financial statements

for the last 4 years. In this testimony, I will discuss the results of

our audit of USAID’s fiscal year 2000 financial statements and

USAID’s corrective actions to date. I will also discuss what remains

to be done from USAID’s perspective of correcting system problems

and preparing auditable financial statements for fiscal year 2001.

As a result of the Chief Financial Officer’s Act of 1990, the Government Management Reform Act of 1994, and the Federal Financial Management Improvement Act of 1996, the Federal Government has embarked on a course to improve the quality of financial

information used to manage its activities. Each of these laws has

impacted the preparation and audit of annual financial statements

by the Federal agencies. However, the overwhelming theme woven

through these legislative initiatives is that the Federal Government

needs to have good financial systems which will enable them to

produce complete, consistent, reliable, and timely information

throughout the fiscal year.

The audit opinion of the financial statements, which represents

the status of the financial operations at a specific point in time, is,

or should be, a simple by-product of good financial management

systems because the opinion is based on everyday information contained in its accounting records.

We do not believe that the legislation contemplated the use of heroic measures to prepare and audit a set of financial statements

which do not reflect the information normally present and used to

manage operations.

7

For example, it is possible for an agency that has inadequate financial systems to receive an opinion, even an unqualified opinion.

However, to do so, two things would have to be done: First, the

Agency would have to invest significant time and money to create

work around procedures to achieve accurate information that the

system could not produce. Second, the OIG or other audit organizations would have to invest significant time and money to perform

extensive testing of these procedures, due to the increase in audit

risk associated with unreliable systems.

In my opinion it would be a waste of resources and a contradiction of the legislative intent for an agency to go through such efforts to receive an opinion on its financial statements when it does

not have systems that could provide complete, consistent, reliable,

and timely information for managers to use throughout the year in

making decisions.

During the last 18 months USAID has made progress toward resolving some longstanding problems with its financial management

systems and has submitted significant resources for additional improvements necessary for preparing auditable financial statements.

However, at the time the audit began, USAID still faced some immediate challenges with its fiscal year 2000 financial statements.

These challenges included: correcting outstanding financial management systems deficiencies; implementing an integrated financial

management system; reconciling financial data; and processing, recording, and reporting financial information in accordance with

general accepted accounting principles.

Because USAID’s efforts to improve the system that produces financial statements had not fully implemented all related corrective

actions, the OIG and USAID management agreed that it would be

most beneficial to focus our audit efforts on the five areas that

were prohibiting USAID from getting an opinion. These five areas

were: complying with the FFMIA requirements, such as computer

security and the use of Federal accounting standards; reconciling

and managing USAID’s fund balances with Treasury; reporting

credit program receivables; accounting for advances to grantees;

and calculating and reporting accounts payable and accrued expenses.

By focusing on these five areas rather than performing substantive testing on what we agreed was unreliable financial information, the OIG and management officials concluded that USAID

would be in a better position to establish reliable beginning balances for future statements to be audited and progress toward having a system capable of helping managers manage.

We were unable to express an opinion of USAID’s consolidated

financial statements for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2000,

and I shall use a disclaimer. Factors that led to our decision to disclaim an opinion were that USAID made some material changes in

its accounting process after the close of fiscal year 2000. These

changes resulted in material adjustments to the financial statements late in December 2000. And because the Agency’s automated

system could not be used to develop information that the OIG could

use to validate the adjustments, we did not have sufficient support

to determine whether the adjustments were reliable.

8

The uncorrected system deficiencies and material adjustments

created a consequential risk that the financial statements could

contain material misstatements. USAID’s management concurred

with the audit findings and agreed to eliminate these problems.

We’re continuing to work with USAID management to evaluate

their efforts and take corrective actions.

To correct these deficiencies reported, USAID deployed a core financial accounting component of a new financial management and

accounting system in December 2000. This commercial off-the-shelf

accounting system, Phoenix as it is called, replaced key aspects of

the Agency’s unreliable financial management systems, called the

New Management System [NMS].

In addition, our audit of the fiscal year 2000 financial statements

show that USAID had improved its ability to reconcile and manage

its funds balance with the U.S. Treasury and report reliable balances for its credit program receivables.

In late December 2000, USAID established a new methodology

for estimating its accounts payable and accrued expenses related to

advances to grantees at fiscal year’s end. I am pleased to note that

during the initial phases of the fiscal year 2000 audit, the OIG has

analyzed the advance-related accrued expenses estimating method

and found it to be adequate.

Regarding the problems noted in fiscal year 2000 with the accounts payable estimates, the OIG is currently evaluating USAID’s

procedure to determine the reasonableness of its estimating methodology.

Despite having implemented Phoenix in headquarters, there remains work to be done. USAID needs to successfully complete the

Phoenix implementation worldwide, complete financial actions on

outstanding audit recommendations, and address several specific

issues with material line items on its financial statements.

Along with deploying Phoenix, USAID is facing challenges that

typically occur when implementing new accounting systems. Phoenix is not yet fully operational and in the short term, USAID needs

to: one, complete the testing and deployment of the interfaces linking mission and procurement data to the core financial system;

two, eliminate several key operational elements performed outside

the core financial accounting system, such as making payments

and generating funds control reports; and three, migrate the beginning balances for fiscal year 2001.

To date, USAID has not entered into the Washington headquarters accounting records any financial information related to its

overseas operation for fiscal year 2001. Overseas operations are recorded and maintained in the mission accounting and control system [MACS]. USAID does not plan to enter the information into

the Washington headquarters accounting records until an electronic interface for field data is deployed, currently scheduled for

late in this fiscal year.

This will have a critical impact on the fiscal year’s 2001 audit,

because we cannot fully assess risks associated with the electronic

interface until it is deployed. Further, MACS is not currently

scheduled for replacement until fiscal year 2003. This will continue

to impact future audits until MACS is replaced with the worldwide

implementation of Phoenix.

9

USAID also needs to address the remaining OIG recommendations that were not fully completed as of September 30, 2000.

While management has concurred with these recommendations, all

financial actions have not been accomplished.

Finally, USAID must be able to establish beginning balances for

material line items of its financial statements for OIG to opine on

the fiscal year 2001 financial statements. We are currently working

with USAID to review these beginning balances for our fiscal year

2001 audit.

The challenges faced by USAID also present challenges to OIG

in planning our audit of the fiscal year 2001 financial statements.

At this time, we cannot be sure what problems may arise as

USAID continues to address its financial management problems

and complete the deployment of the Phoenix system and its necessary interfaces.

While USAID lost valuable time during the period when it was

attempting to implement the NMS, considerable progress has been

made since a decision was made to deploy Phoenix. In addition,

USAID’s financial managers have shown an increasingly strong

and supportive attitude toward the financial statement audit and

the value it brings to their systems. Specifically, the new Administrator, who was just sworn in last week, has said that improving

the Agency’s management systems will be his primary focus in his

first year.

We are currently hopeful that USAID can develop fiscal year

2001 financial statements on which we can render an opinion.

Mr. Chairman that concludes my statement. And we will be

pleased to answer questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Mosley follows:]

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

Mr. HORN. I thank the gentleman. We now have the Acting Assistant Administrator for Management, Richard C. Nygard, for the

U.S. Agency for International Development.

Mr. NYGARD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman and

members. It’s my honor to appear today before your subcommittee

to discuss the problems we’ve experienced in our financial systems

and the actions we’ve taken to date and are taking to correct them.

I’m accompanied today by Mr. Michael Smokovich, our chief financial officer, and by Mr. Sandy Owens, our deputy CFO. I will, as

you suggested, briefly summarize my written testimony.

Mr. Chairman, our focus over the past 3 years has been on solving the Agency’s fundamental financial management problems.

We’ve devoted extraordinary efforts to correcting our systems and

processes, believing that this work is most important and will lead

to auditable financial statements. We’ve worked closely with Mr.

Mosley and his staff in addressing these problems and have made

considerable progress. With the efforts that have been made and

that will continue, we plan to have our statements audited this

year and to move rapidly thereafter toward getting a ‘‘clean,’’ unqualified opinion. Our efforts are based on solving specific problems, on eliminating material weaknesses, on improving our financial and other business information systems, and on carrying out

a comprehensive financial remediation plan.

In terms of problems, the IG staff have pointed out a number of

these that impeded their ability to audit USAID’s financial statements over the past few years. We’ve concentrated this year on

achieving major progress in four problem areas. First is the reconciliation of fund or cash balances with Treasury. We’ve achieved

continuous improvement in this area. As an example, our absolute

difference with Treasury was reduced from $266 million in fiscal

1999 to less than $83 million last year. We expect further improvement this year, and despite the workload and complexities related

to implementing our new accounting system, we plan to bring that

difference down.

Next is loan accounts receivable. We outsourced our loan and

credit servicing to a commercial bank in 1998 and have improved

performance in that area, as was noted by Mr. Mosley. Third is advances to grantees. The Inspector General has been concerned that

using pooled advances whereby a grantee can receive advances on

multiple grants in a single transaction doesn’t give adequate accountability. So we’re converting to grant-specific advances. We’ve

already reconciled more than half of our grantee accounts, and

have begun conversion of these accounts to the new approach.

Fourth, our methodology for accrued expenditures has improved

to provide greater accuracy. We introduced this new methodology

late last fiscal year, but as noted, too late for the IG to validate

its accuracy. We’re working with the IG to facilitate their doing so

this year.

In the area of material weaknesses, in 1998, the Agency reported

nine such weaknesses. To date, we’ve closed five of them and expect to close three more this year, and the final one next year. The

three to be closed this year are the accounting system itself, which

our new COTS-based system will resolve; financial reporting, which

will be solved by an effective interface between the new headVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:04 Apr 30, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00027 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\77918.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
24

quarters accounting system and our ongoing system in the field;

and IRM procedures, which will be resolved through the use of the

disciplined IT methodology that we’ve been working on for the past

3 years.

The fourth and last remaining material weakness is computer security, a concern to all Federal agencies. We’ve made major

progress in this area and have taken a leadership role in establishing best practices under the Federal CIO council. We’ve devoted

high priority to assuring the security of the new accounting system

and are also strengthening the security of systems at our overseas

accounting stations.

Let me talk now about improving systems. After an unsuccessful

attempt to implement a custom built system in the mid 90’s, we

followed the recommendations of an independent review led by

IBM: employing a highly skilled systems integration firm, basing

our systems on COTS packages designed for Federal agencies, and

outsourcing and cross-servicing with other agencies wherever possible.

We procured such an accounting system late in fiscal 1999, configured it in fiscal 2000 without making any modifications to the

software, and implemented it at headquarters earlier this year. We

plan to purchase a COTS procurement system next year. We have

outsourced our loan and credit servicing to a commercial bank and

have cross-serviced our grant letter of credit advances programs,

our payroll processing and our personnel data system to other Federal agencies. This year we will implement automated interfaces

between our new financial system and other systems.

On our remediation plan, we’ve instituted a comprehensive plan

which includes many of the actions mentioned above and also focuses on better approaches to resolving audit findings.

Last year, the Inspector General produced some 80 findings and

recommendations related to the financial system and statements.

To date, we’ve closed about three-quarters of these, and the rest

will be resolved later this fiscal year or early next fiscal year. Our

goal, however, is to reduce significantly the number of audit findings and recommendations, financial and other, through a combination of better systems and policies and much better training of our

staff.

We believe, Mr. Chairman, that the remediation plan is already

producing better financial management at USAID, and that we will

continue to improve in the coming years. One indicator of this will,

we hope, be the IG’s ability to audit our financial statements starting this year.

I thank you, sir.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Nygard follows:]

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

Mr. HORN. We thank you. Does any other member with you want

to say anything at this point that may have been missed?

OK. I have a lot of feeling for the Agency for International Development. You have a very important mission. And we will hope that

the money the Congress gives the USAID will go to a good cause.

And if we don’t have a decent financial system and a decent management system, that money will not go for a decent cause. So

you’ve got quite a responsibility ahead of you.

Let me start on the debt collection, which is dear to my heart,

since it’s the law that I got passed in 1996. I’d like to know from

both of you, can you estimate the amount of improper payments including duplicate payments, overpayments and payments for goods

and services not received made each year by the Agency? Do we

know where the debts are and how we—— Mr. SMOKOVICH. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Smokovich. USAID payments are generally made to contractors and vendors who have a

business relationship with the Agency. We have been able to refer

debt to Treasury which is stale debt, as you’re well aware of. We

have found no substantial problem with erroneous payments in the

Agency.

Mr. HORN. How stale is the debt?

Mr. SMOKOVICH. Mr. Owens.

Mr. OWENS. Our administrative receivables are normally no

more than a year old when they’re referred to Treasury. I don’t

have those exact figures with me, Mr. Chairman. We can provide

them.

Mr. HORN. If you could, we’ll have a place in the record at this

point.

[The information referred to follows:]

In 1999, 13 cases were referred to Treasury with a value of $1,205,349.23. During

2000, 11 cases were referred to Treasury totalling $661,938.77 and as for 2001, we

have referred on case for $456,766.14.’’

Mr. HORN. Without objection if you could put a letter in as to

where are we on that particular debt, how—because people we’ve

found—and this is what every debt collector knows, when you don’t

have much communication with a person that owes the debt, that

they just think it’s a grant. And we’re not in the grant business.

We’re in a lot of these things. You’re in a lot of grant business because of humanitarian groups that are trying to do that.

Mr. SMOKOVICH. Mr. Chairman, let me add one comment on that.

The IG has raised some issue with our administrative receivables.

There’s about $48 million out there. Those are a small part of our

portfolio, and we have followup processes in place in Washington,

which will be helped by the new accounting system, because we’ll

be able to book them, but in the field, those are handled essentially

on cuff records. But we do have good controllers and executive officers out there who do followup with our people. And we do run a

fairly aggressive drill on delinquent credit card debt. We brought

that down dramatically last year and even more dramatically this

year.

Mr. HORN. Does the Agency have contracts with the private debt

collectors to get at delinquent debts?

Mr. SMOKOVICH. We are using the private debt collection contractors that the U.S. Treasury has put in place.

32

Mr. HORN. Through the financial management?

Mr. SMOKOVICH. Yes, sir.

Mr. HORN. Well, they do a good job. So hopefully we can get

some of that money back.

What are the processes that the Agency used to recover them?

You say you turn it all over to the financial management group,

or is there anything else you do like when somebody picks up the

phone and says look, you have an obligation here. What are you

going to do about it?

Mr. SMOKOVICH. There are two processes at work there. One is

where it’s a business related debt. When the debt becomes stale,

that debt is referred to the Treasury. On our own internal administrative debt, we have a process in place where our accounting and

financial shop will followup with employees, and I actually get involved in those to make sure that we don’t have to send any of

those people to Treasury for offset. So it’s a fairly active approach.

Mr. HORN. How are the recovered payments accounted for in the

Agency’s financial statement?

Mr. SMOKOVICH. In the past, we had not been able to book those

into the accounting system. This year we’re beginning to do that.

Where we have an account receivable recorded, that’s one of the

things we’re effectively doing at the end of the year, establishing

that record on the financial statements of the Agency.

Mr. HORN. Well, that’s good news. And I hope to see it in all future balance sheets.

Are the contractors required to notify the Agency about these

overpayments? And what do you do about it? You’ve got how many

contractors that deal with USAID?

Mr. SMOKOVICH. I’m not sure I understand your question fully,

but right now with USAID Washington, we have 12,000 vendors in

our file composed of grantees and contractors. One of the things

we’re able to do with the accounting system implementation is

clean that record up. At one point, it looked like we had as many

as 18,000.

Mr. HORN. What do you have overseas?

Mr. SMOKOVICH. I don’t have that number. I could get that number for you.

Mr. HORN. If you could, we’ll put it in the record at this point.

And is it just a lost battle when you’ve got a number overseas?

How difficult is that for you to get it in a foreign country in a foreign nation?

Mr. SMOKOVICH. It depends on country law, but our people typically are fairly high grade professional CPAs, MBAs, so they know

the processes. The difficulty we have is getting access to the data,

as you well know. Without the corporate systems, everything turns

into a data call from us to a mission.

Mr. HORN. And what kind of response do you get from the mission? Do they say, ‘‘don’t bother me?’’

Mr. SMOKOVICH. No, sir, they’re very professional. They usually

turn it around in a day. The only trouble we have sometimes is understanding what time of day it is over there.

Mr. HORN. Well, I can understand that. But if you could just put

in the record at this point how many contractors overseas, where

there were overpayments or underpayments, what happened, just

33

in a generic way. I’m not asking to you go through every single one,

but somebody somewhere must have some feel for whether they

just defaulted and/or they got the job done.

And were the contractors required to pay interest to the government on overpayments? How is that doing?

Mr. SMOKOVICH. Yes, they are.

Mr. HORN. OK. Put a little something in the record on that at

this point, too.

What steps can Congress take to help facilitate the identification

and recovery of overpayments? And I really asked that of the Inspector General. You’ve looked, I take it, at some of these questions

of loans and payments, overpayments, underpayments, all the rest.

In the Pentagon we have a lot of that. And I don’t know the degree

to which that has happened in USAID. But with missions all over

the world, I can certainly see a lot of strange things would happen.

And have you sent some of your people out to where things really

happen in different continents and seen what’s happened on loans

that went to an agency and they didn’t do a thing about it? Or do

we just sit here in Washington to be—— Mr. CRANDLEMIRE. One of the things that we’ve been working

with the Office of Procurement on is a process where in it introduces more discipline into the recovery of questioned costs that

arise out of audits. Historically, USAID has not pressed its contractors and grantees sufficiently to get these moneys in. This has resulted in a number of recommendations building up where USAID

needs to make management decisions, and it’s just not good business.

Mr. Toby Jarman, the Assistant Inspector General for Audit, and

I have worked with Mr. Mark Ward, Director for procurement, who

recently came in from USAID Moscow. We’ve come to an agreement where we’re going to introduce some additional disciplines

into the grantee and contractor community.

One of the things that Mark has agreed to do is when an audit

report comes out, speak very directly to the grantee and to the contractor, and in that speaking, let them know that the entity has

been doing business with USAID for some time; the entity is a sophisticated entity. We need to get these question costs supported

and get these moneys returned. This is about doing business.

Mark has been very good with us on that. He’s invited Mr.

Jarman and myself to speak to trade groups to get this idea across.

It has been, I think, received relatively well. We have seen a significant reduction in a number of recommendations that did not

have a management decision. It’s about a discipline. It’s about a

process to do business in a more orderly fashion. I think we’re getting there in this particular area, and that’s one step toward reducing the amount of outstanding questioned costs.

Mr. HORN. I turn to the ranking member, the woman from Illinois, Ms. Schakowsky.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Nygard, did

you say that you thought that USAID would be able to receive an

opinion this coming year?

Mr. NYGARD. What I said, Ms. Schakowsky, was that the Inspector General has agreed to audit our financial statements this year.

I think that this is a major step forward. As Mr. Mosley said in

34

his testimony, in the past, there has been a concern about the

amount of actual work that would have to go in to trying to do an

audit. And if I heard him correctly, he was saying that as of this

year, we now have a system in place with our new accounting system, and if we implement the interface between the field and

Washington where it will be possible for the Inspector General’s

audit staff to do an audit of our financial statements, coming out

of that ordinarily will be an opinion.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. As the chairman said, the earlier panel was

dealing with the Department of Defense, the largest agency, and

USAID, one of the smallest. How do you account for—is there

something unique about USAID that has made these problems

seem so difficult to resolve over the last several years?

Mr. NYGARD. Well, for one thing as I said earlier, we were burdened with the fact that we tried to build our own custom built financial and comprehensive information system for the Agency. And

in retrospect, that was a mistake 6 years ago. Now we’re using

commercial off-the-shelf software, which is going to be much more

effective. We’ve also had the difficulties, the accounting difficulties

that I summarized in my statement, and one also has to realize

that as the chairman noted earlier, we have 70 overseas posts and

38 accounting stations overseas where we have standard accounting systems. It’s a complex situation even given the relatively small

size of our agency compared to the Department of Defense. So we

have complexities, but we’ve had problems, some of which have

clearly been of our own making.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. I wanted to ask you about the overseas operations. My understanding that most of the financial management

improvements have been at the Washington offices. When will improvements made at headquarters be realized in the field offices?

Mr. NYGARD. I think we’re constantly making improvements,

both in Washington and overseas, but specifically we plan to roll

out the accounting system that we have installed in Washington to

our overseas missions, probably starting in the fiscal 2003 timeframe. Doing so requires some information technology infrastructure work to be completed before we do it. So it will probably be

about 2 years from now before we’re able to put the system we call

Phoenix out worldwide.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Meaning that you would start now but it

wouldn’t be completed until 2003? These timeframes are daunting

to me. They just seem so long.

Mr. NYGARD. They seem long to us, too. I agree. In the next fiscal

year we will be doing pilot testing at several missions overseas to

make sure the system works. One of the difficulties we had when

we tried to put the so-called new management system out to the

field 6 years ago was that there was no real pilot test. They assumed that what worked in Washington would work overseas. That

wasn’t the case. There were communication problems, technology

problems. We’re going to make sure that we do perfectly adequate

systems testing and pilot testing before we put it out.

That will take some time. As I said also, the communications between the field in Washington, communications infrastructure,

some of which goes through the Department of State and some of

which goes through our own satellites, needs to be heavied up

35

somewhat at a number of our missions in order to accommodate

the load that the new accounting system will put overseas.

So it is a matter of not just the accounting system itself, but the

technology that goes along with it. When we put it out this time,

we don’t want it to fail as it did 6 years ago.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. USAID reports that it has developed a model

security program which has been selected as a best security practice by the Federal Chief Information Officer Council, yet the Inspector General reports that its recommendations on reporting an

effective computer security program has not been fully implemented.

I understand it is supposed to be scheduled for 2002. Is that

what I heard you say?

Mr. NYGARD. That’s correct.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. What is the status right now of computer security at USAID?

Mr. NYGARD. We have made major progress in computer security.

As I said earlier, we have worked—our computer security professionals have worked with the Federal CIO Council in developing

and taking the lead in establishing best practices for information

technology security. We have built a computer security risk assessment and certification process that we have put in and implemented.

The new accounting system, Phoenix, was certified as secure before we implemented it, something we had not done with our previous systems.

A number of our legacy systems have been certified compliant,

and this year, later this year, the software for our overseas accounting system, which has existed for more than a decade, will

undergo a similar certification.

Over the course of this year and the next fiscal year, we will be

doing security risk assessments and improvements at each one of

our overseas missions. This is unfortunately not something we can

do just from the center. It is a matter of visiting each of the 38 accounting systems stations overseas and making the necessary fixes

at them. That is really what is going to delay the closing of that

material weakness until next year.

But we have a plan. We have made excellent progress to date.

We have actually been able to move up the completion date from

what had originally been 2003 to next year, so we feel we are moving in the right direction, though we are not there yet.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. I will just ask a question about the old system,

the pre-Phoenix system.

Again, to me it seems like it took an awfully long time to figure

out that it was broke and needed fixing. It sounds like it never

really worked very well.

Why didn’t you see those changes made earlier?

Mr. NYGARD. Actually, I don’t mean to make humor of a very serious situation, but I almost said, when we found out that we were

having serious problems with this back in 1997, and I was not in

my present job at that time, I said, why can’t we just buy something like Quicken and plug it in?

It does not work like that. IBM, as I mentioned in my statement,

carried out a study for us in 1997–1998. They made recommendaVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:04 Apr 30, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00039 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\77918.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
36

tions as to how we should proceed. We brought on board a very capable systems integration firm that has helped guide us as we have

gone ahead.

We then had to go through the procurement of a new accounting

system to look at what was available. We procured this Phoenix

system, which is what we call it, which is really American Management System’s Momentum financial software, at the end of fiscal

year 1999, so it took a year and a half to procure that system. Then

it took another year to configure it.

As I said, we didn’t make any basic changes in the software, but

each agency has somewhat different ways of doing business, so it

took all of fiscal year 2000 to get the system ready to implement.

Then we did extensive testing. It takes also an awful lot of training

of individuals so they will be able to understand what they are

doing.

At the end of fiscal year 2000, at the beginning of this fiscal year,

we completed the testing and training so when we did implement

the new system, it went quite smoothly, I would say. Nothing ever

goes without bumps and bangs, but that preliminary work that we

did made for a good implementation. We worked very closely with

Mr. Mosley and his folks in doing that.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. In other words, though, it has taken 4 years

from the time when you knew you were going to have to change

it for that change to be not quite completed, because it is only the

Washington office?

Mr. NYGARD. Two years from the time we knew we had a problem until the time we bought the new system, and another year

and a quarter to implement in Washington, yes.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. That is a long time.

Mr. NYGARD. Yes.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Let me ask a final question. Material discrepancies exist between USAID loan information maintained by a private bank and USAID’s records.

The Inspector General reported that on September 30, 2000, the

total discrepancy was $459 million. USAID subsequently identified

and reconciled $366 million of the discrepancy, and made a onetime adjustment of $93 million to reconcile the difference.

Could you explain the discrepancy, how it occurred, and what is

being done to reconcile it?

Mr. OWENS. The USAID loan portfolio dates all the way back to

the post World War II reconstruction, the Marshall Plan, up until

the late eighties, when we basically quit making direct loans under

our programs.

Over the years we maintained our own home-built loan accounting system, and in 1998, working with the Office of Management

and Budget and the Inspector General, we made a decision to outsource our loan servicing to Riggs Bank here in Washington. As

part of that process, we did a complete reconciliation with Riggs

Bank, and that is where we identified those differences.

We were able to resolve most of those differences after doing the

complete reconciliation, but the remaining portion we could not determine. We agreed with the IG, the Inspector General’s Office, to

make a one-time adjustment to bring our general ledger accounts

37

into agreement with the individual loan records. So now our ledgers and our individual loan records are in balance.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Thank you.

Mr. CRANDLEMIRE. I would like to add that in the years prior to

this effort, where they went out and did reconciliations, our standard practice of confirming balances with the grantees and the debtors did not go well. We could not get agreement. There clearly were

many, many years of error and bad accounting that had gotten in

there, not through intention, but it just happened.

This was a good effort and it resulted in some good numbers

where now we can do a standard confirmation, which is a normal

audit technique to get a third-party confirmation. This has vastly

improved the efficiency of our audit process for this particular line

item, which is one of the largest on USAID’s balance sheet. It is

a good thing.

Mr. MOSLEY. I might also add, Ms. Shakowsky, in terms of your

concerns about what took so long, I have to be very honest and say

part of the problem on why it took so long was communications. We

now have a management that agrees and is working with us. I

think that will make a tremendous difference in terms of getting

the problems corrected.

You also talked about the problems in the field. I think I should

point out that even though they have not exposed the field to the

use of the new Phoenix system yet, the MACS system that is being

used in the field is the system that the OIG has found the least

number of problems with, so the data is being tracked. The difficulty is that it is not as quickly interfaced into the Washington

system, and it certainly slows managers in being able to have access to that system and manage it. But from the standpoint of having the information, it is there. That is one of the best systems that

they have.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HORN. Thank you.

I just have a few round-up questions, if you will.

You have now been under the Department of State for almost 1

year or so. Has that changed anything in terms of either financial

management or management systems? What has happened in that

year?

Mr. NYGARD. Let me start off responding to that. Perhaps Mr.

Mosley will want to add something else.

Under the new legislation, the Agency for International Development remains a separate agency, but our Administrator reports directly to the Secretary of State, rather than to the President, as

previously. This has engendered a much closer working relationship with the State.

We are looking for areas where administrative efficiencies can be

realized. Obviously, they are overseas, we are overseas. We are colocated with them in one-third of our overseas posts. Our objective

is, wherever they are building a new embassy where we are located, to co-locate with them, for efficiency’s sake and also for security’s sake.

In terms of financial management systems, we do not have integrated systems with them. They are using AMS Momentum now,

starting overseas. We are using AMS Momentum.

38

The roles of the agencies are somewhat different. Obviously, the

great majority of the Department’s money tends to be administrative money: salaries, expenses, that sort of thing. The great majority of our money is program money. So again, Mike Smokovich and

his staff are working with the CFO’s staff over at State to find

areas where we can work together.

At this point we have not worked to merge our systems, but

clearly administrative efficiencies, particularly in overseas operations, are the goal of both organizations.

Mr. HORN. One of the things that this subcommittee cares about

is computer security. I just wondered, is your computer security

and is the State’s computer security, which we will ask them about,

and a number of other agencies—some of them say, hey, we don’t

have to worry about that because we are completely off where they

cannot get us.

When I go to a place such as Italy, and they are now the sixth

largest economy in the world, they are quite correctly worried

about the access to private sector computers that could bring down

the whole economic industry. We could also be brought down.

I notice—when you say use of a satellite, that made me wonder,

with some of these people who have quite a few billion dollars to

be rogue countries or rogue terrorists or whatever, I wondered, to

what degree are you looking out for that? Does that come under

your particular bailiwick in USAID?

Mr. NYGARD. Yes, I think it does.

When we talk about information security, obviously there are two

totally different things. One is information systems security, which

clearly comes under my bailiwick. The other is information security, which has to do with classified information, which would come

under the purview of the Director of Security. In terms of that, we

are vividly concerned with that.

Mr. HORN. Is that person reporting to you, or is that a State Department person?

Mr. NYGARD. The Director of Security in terms of classified information, protecting, this sort of thing, reports directly to the Administrator of the Agency. But, obviously, our computer security people

work very closely with them. When we are looking at information

security, we also have to be looking at computer security. We are

working together closely on that.

The man we have heading our computer security program was

brought in from the private sector. He is very experienced, as I said

in my testimony. He has taken the lead with the Federal CIO

Council. He has been working with Fernando Burbano, the CIO

over at State. There are a number of areas on which they are working together.

Our prime focus, of course, is ourselves, but we are not just looking at ourselves.

Mr. HORN. Would you like to comment, Mr. Mosley?

Mr. MOSLEY. Yes. From our perspective in terms of being under

the Secretary of State, it has no real effect on our real data because

the data is kept separately.

However, we could work with the State IG. We have periodic

meetings, a minimum of quarterly, to talk about areas where we

can join our audit efforts and make sure we are giving coverage.

39

We also have field people, where State does not have people in

the field, so we are able to supplement some of our reviews by

using the people in the field.

One of the areas that does involve the financial systems is the

transfer of funds under section 632 of the Foreign Service Act. We

have worked closely with State and the other Federal agencies to

try and make sure when those funds are transferred, that they are

properly recorded in the financial records of both our agency and

the agency they are transferred to, and that correct tracking is

being accomplished.

Mr. HORN. Each year in some of these statements we have heard

the same message, in a way, that improvements have been made

but much remains to be done.

What do you think can be done in this particular fiscal year that

was not done last year?

Mr. Nygard, what do you think?

Mr. NYGARD. I think the four problem areas that we discussed

earlier, where we are working closely with the Inspector General,

will move a long way to both—our main goal is to improve financial

management. As a result of that, we hope to get our financial

statements audited. So that is a major thing.

The implementation of our new accounting system clears up the

Washington accounting, which has been a major problem. As Mr.

Mosley has said, our field accounting has been less of a problem,

but it is critically important that at the end of this fiscal year, we

have an adequate interface where the information from the field

can be brought in and put into our general ledger, along with the

Washington data. That will be a major goal for us to do this year.

I think if we accomplish those things this year, we will be in

quite good shape. Obviously, what will remain to be done will be

to put the same accounting system overseas in the course of the

next 2 years.

Mr. HORN. What kind of General Schedule personnel can you get

to help solve that problem? I think part of our problem in a few

places, and I think of the Columbus operation in Ohio, which is

under the Army’s jurisdiction, but I was sort of shocked when I saw

the low level of grades in terms of people looking at contracts and

this kind of thing, and following up on it.

So do you have any problems on personnel?

Mr. NYGARD. We have had to use a higher proportion of contractors, I think, because we have not had enough capable financial

management personnel. I will let Mr. Smokovich talk to that. But

my feeling is it is kind of a middle generation. We have accounting

technicians at relatively junior grades, and we have a number of

very capable people at the most senior grades, but it is kind of the

GS–13, 14, 15, where we have been lacking and where we are trying desperately to recruit qualified people.

Mr. Smokovich, do you want to add to that?

Mr. SMOKOVICH. In the downsizing days we lost some of our best

people, before I came there. We have been blessed in this project

effort to have senior Foreign Service officers and GS–15 level and

SES level people dedicated to the project, but we do have a challenge in rebuilding the organization, because, as you say, people

solve problems, systems don’t.

40

In the field, we are uniquely blessed in the sense that we have

CPAs, MBAs, in the Foreign Service, but we are losing them to a

competitive economy.

The other thing we have going for us is very strong Foreign Service national employees. I have about 650 people worldwide who do

our finances for us. Our strength is less in our systems than in our

people.

Mr. HORN. Are we reaching out into the colleges of this country

to try to find people? I would think that is a very attractive situation where you have people who feel good about themselves and

good about our country, and get a chance to see and do something

for the good of mankind.

Mr. SMOKOVICH. The answer is yes, but Rick might want to respond to this, too. USAID is uniquely able to attract people because

of its mission. We have a great mission. We have started hiring

new entry professionals.

When I came 2 years ago, there were no new people. We are

starting to get them in now. Rick?

Mr. NYGARD. I would say two things. We have really two categories of employees in USAID: We have Civil Service employees

who work in Washington, and Foreign Service officers who work

both overseas and in Washington.

For the Foreign Service, we have adopted a comprehensive work

force planning system that has resulted in the new entry professionals that Mr. Smokovich was talking about, including comptrollers. For the most part, these people are not right out of college but

are in their thirties, have experience, and most have overseas experience.

I was introduced to one this morning who spent 2 years as a contract comptroller in our mission in one of the Central American

countries, so that is one area.

The other is Civil Service, where Washington systems need to be

improved. There I can tell you that our work force planning priorities for Civil Service people include three categories of people, all

of whom happen to fall under my area: information technology, procurement, and financial management. I’m not saying one is more

important than the other. Those are our priorities.

We are going after college graduates. As Mr. Smokovich said, the

mission of our Agency is indeed something that is quite attractive

to people, even if they are only going to be working in Washington.

So that is helping us bring people on.

Mr. HORN. I would hope so, because, as you say very eloquently,

it is important. We should do that, and we should be walking

around the campuses of the country and seeing if we can pick people up, because we have a real problem with human infrastructure,

if you will, with a lot of good people retiring and going out of the

system. We need to have the opportunities. Where else do we have

an opportunity like this, either in the services or the Civil Service?

That is where we need a lot of help.

We ought to be starting in kindergarten in terms of logic and everything else, and not be importing people from abroad. We ought

to be training our own people and educating them, and retraining

them.

41

Is there anything else any of you want to make a point on before

we close down? Mr. Inspector General.

Mr. MOSLEY. No, sir. Thank you.

Mr. HORN. Mr. Smokovich.

Mr. SMOKOVICH. Mr. Chairman, I think this is a remarkable

hearing. You see five people who are all dedicated to fixing the

problems of the Agency and getting an opinion on an audited statement, which has never happened before. So I am betting and I am

hoping that our grade goes up the next time you do that.

Mr. HORN. We look forward to it.

We are in recess until 1:30. That is the Department of Agriculture.

[Whereupon, at 12:20 p.m., the subcommittee recessed, to reconvene with other business at 1:30 p.m., this same day.]

Æ