USA: Inspectors General Lack Crucial Resources

Our friends at the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) have a new report on the U.S. inspectors general, a constellation of watchdog agencies distributed throughout the government. POGO finds that many IGs lack required resources, limiting their independence. Global Integrity also reported on this trend earlier this year in the Global Integrity Report: United States. The real irony of this underfunding is that the IGs actually turn a substantial "profit" by catching more waste and fraud than they cost to operate. This really only leaves one explanation for underfunding them -- elected officials find effective oversight to be inconvenient.

Quoting from the POGO newsletter --

Many of the nation's inspectors general (IGs) lack the resources they need to function as independent government watchdogs, according to a new report released by POGO last Friday. POGO sent a questionnaire to all 64 statutory IG offices, and discovered that many IGs are being forced to operate with minimal funding and staffing, a lack of in-house legal counsels, limited control over their own websites, and competition from similar investigative units within their agencies. As POGO points out in the report, "calling someone who lacks independence of agency leadership an 'Inspector General' not only confuses the press and public, but can also create pitfalls for potential whistleblowers."

Click here to read POGO's report, which has been covered in the Washington Post and Government Executive. You can also learn more by reading POGO's press alert and blog post.

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