Inspector General | Center for Effective Government

Is the Federal Government Failing to Save $67 Billion? Congress Should Look in the Mirror

Feb 25, 2014 by Nick Schwellenbach

Many members of Congress have taken to social media this week pushing a stat that says the federal government is failing to implement some 17,000 recommendations from inspectors general that could - in total - save an estimated $67 billion a year. The stat is based on a report issued by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee last March.

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Would McCaskill's Contingency Contracting IG be Worth It?

Oct 5, 2010 by Gary Therkildsen*

At a Senate Armed Services hearing last week, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) urged officials from the Department of Defense (DOD) to establish a permanent inspector general office for contingency contracting. If the billions wasted through our rebuilding efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan – which, by the way, are likely to be the kinds of wars we are going to fight into the indefinite future – is any measure, it seems a permanent IG might be worth the investment.

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Iraq Reconstruction IG Nabs a Couple Bad Guys

Feb 3, 2010 by Gary Therkildsen*

The office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) released its 24th quarterly report on Saturday. If you haven't been paying attention to what's been going on in Iraq recently, it's worth a read. Besides providing observations on what's happening in the country and detailing the sources and uses of reconstruction funds, the inspector general's report also describes their recent oversight activities and successes in rooting out corruption within government contracting overseas.

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State Dept Continues to Fail at Contractor Oversight

Oct 26, 2009 by Gary Therkildsen*

The contracting boondoggle that is the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq came into full focus last week with the State Department's release of an Inspector General's audit of the compound. We already knew that construction of the fortress-like embassy, which is the largest on the planet and ten times bigger than any other US embassy, was riddled with the big WF&B (waste, fraud and abuse), but the sheer scale of corruption and ineptitude detailed in the report brings back into question the State Department's ability to oversee contractors.

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