Semiannual Reports

We found that inadequate controls resulted in non-compliance with agency policies and guidance from the Office of Management and Budget. To reduce the risk of fraudulent behavior and financial abuse, the agency needs to improve its policies and procedures, training, and oversight provided to the purchase card program. By not maintaining sufficient controls to assure compliance with Peace Corps and Federal requirements, the Peace Corps put itself at risk for fraudulent behavior and financial abuse. We found several weaknesses caused by insufficient controls: inadequate policies and procedures, lack of required training, inadequate oversight, and inadequate use of the available data analytic tools. This report makes six recommendations to help enhance controls over purchase card transactions.

The objective of this Management Advisory Report was to determine the agency's rationale for maintaining a full staff at the Peace Corps/Kenya post following its suspension in July 2014 and to determine if resources were unnecessarily expended to operate the fully-staffed post for almost 3 years after the suspension. Our results demonstrate that the agency did not deliberately and effectively assess necessary staffing levels throughout the suspension of Peace Corps/Kenya, does not have dedicated policies or procedures governing post suspensions, and did not maintain adequate documentation of key decisions concerning the suspension. This report contains two recommendations.

We found that the post’s financial and administrative operations required significant improvement to comply with agency policies and applicable Federal laws and regulations. Our report contains 25 recommendations directed to both the post and headquarters. At the post, our recommendations included strengthening controls over managing imprest funds, bills of collections, security certifications, and Volunteer payments; ensuring collection of all necessary receipts to claim value added tax refunds; and ensuring proper management oversight of grants, vouchers, and credit cards. Management concurred with all 25 recommendations.

The objective of this Management Advisory Report was to create an understanding of how drug use among Volunteers has affected the agency and its Volunteers since 2015, and how challenges in enforcement and data gathering have impeded agency efforts to address the problem. This report included six recommendations.

This semiannual report informs Congress of the Peace Corps Office of Inspector General's work for October 1, 2017 to March 31, 2018.

We found that the post’s financial and administrative operations ran well, but some areas required improvement to comply with agency policies and applicable federal laws and regulations. Our report contains 11 recommendations directed to the post and headquarters. We recommend that the post strengthen its controls in the management of imprest funds and purchases. In addition, we recommend that the post retrain its Peace Corps medical officers on authorization of dental care processes and on how to properly dispose of medical supplies. Management concurred with all 11 recommendations.

The objective of this limited scope follow up review was to determine if the agreed upon corrective actions taken in response to the safety and security findings from the 2012 OIG Program Evaluation of Peace Corps/Uganda were fully implemented and had the intended effects. This review included seven recommendations, all with which the post concurred.

This limited scope review is a follow up to our 2012 country program evaluation of Peace Corps/Peru. This report focused on five findings from the 2012 evaluation related to programming, training, and safety and security. We found that the post had appropriately responded to each of our 2012 recommendations, and the actions taken had a positive effect on the issues identified in 2012. There are no recommendations in this follow up.

This evaluation focused on the appropriateness of programming, training, and evaluation; the adequacy of Volunteer support; and the effectiveness of post leadership and management. While there are many areas of strength for this post, there are 22 recommendations. The majority are directed at the areas of programming, site development, and training.