内部审计发现大量违规使用交通部门信用卡

黑山老妖

2008年的一个内部审计发现被审计的国家交通部门的官员里有44%违规使用部门发给的信用卡。去年违规使用信用卡的达到65%。
其中有一个基建和交通部的官员连续多天未经批准从信用卡上提取现金，每次最多达到$7000。
另外农渔林业部也被告知有违法金融管理法规，非法签署大金额合同的嫌疑。里面腐败贪污的嫌疑巨大。

Big-spending transport official withdrew $7000 at a time
http://www.smh.com.au/national/b ... 20110919-1ki2c.html

Linton Besser
September 20, 2011

SECRET internal audits have found ''unacceptably high levels'' of credit card abuse by officials in the federal transport agency, including by one bureaucrat who made cash withdrawals of up to $7000 at a time.

A confidential inquiry into taxpayer-funded credit cards three years ago, obtained by the Herald, urged immediate action to address ''the seriousness of [the] findings and the quantity of expenditure involved''.

Despite this report and ''past audits [that] have identified an unacceptably high level of non-compliance'', subsequent investigations inside the agency found similar problems had continued.
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In the 2008 review, for example, 44 per cent of those sampled had breached the rules governing the use of departmental credit cards. Last year, that number climbed to 65 per cent.

The revelations come after the Herald yesterday exposed corruption risks in the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry which included mass breaches of finance regulations and alarming probity lapses in the awarding of large contracts.

In one case in 2008, an infrastructure and transport official was ''believed to have significantly breached the department's card usage policies''.

This included ''extremely excessive cash withdrawals (including withdrawals of $7000 and $1000 on consecutive days)'', and no proper approvals for two of the three months under review.

The report urged the department to ''immediately'' review all expenditure by this federal employee - as well as wider checks on another 18 cardholders.

Yesterday, David Banham, the chief operating officer of the Department of Infrastructure and Transport, told the Herald the department had implemented the recommendations in the 2008 report.

He said the APS6-level employee who had been significantly abusing his card was ''counselled'' and the funds he had taken for ''personal'' use had been recovered. ''The person is no longer an employee of the department,'' he said.

In NSW, such an incident might have qualified for a public hearing by the Independent Commission Against Corruption.

In 2009, the former head of Sydney Ferries, Geoff Smith, was publicly examined by ICAC - and later found to be corrupt - after he was caught abusing his NSW government credit card.

But as there is no such anti-corruption agency in Canberra, taxpayers were never made aware of the case, and it is possible that other such cases have gone unnoticed.

Certainly there have been systemic problems identified in the

department. In 2009, for example, auditors discovered continuing problems with credit cards when they found more than $113,000 had been withdrawn in only seven months.

Cardholders were withdrawing this money, confidential documents say, and above agreed limits ''without appropriate approval''.

There were several cases where a cash withdrawal was unnecessary yet the employee failed to explain the event. ''Cash remaining was not always deposited back to the department credit card and the cardholders did not always obtain supervisor approval to carry forward the funds,'' the audit found.

''Given the number and nature of findings in this review, the department should consider revisiting the cash withdrawal policy and consider whether or not it is appropriate for all cardholders to have access to cash withdrawal facilities,'' the 2009 internal file says.

Mr Banham said the department had forbidden the withdrawal of cash for domestic travel but continued allowing the practice for overseas travel.

The agency's problems with credit cards have been compounded by failures to ensure major spending programs delivered value for money for taxpayers.

A review by KPMG in 2008 found a series of purchases had been improperly managed. In some cases spending was in excess of the approved amount, or had been disbursed before obtaining proper approval.

''In 12 of the procurements examined, there was no evidence on file to indicate that a contract may be entered into,'' the audit found.

Infrastructure and Transport administered programs and grants last year that totalled $6.5 billion.

[ 本帖最后由 黑山老妖 于 2011-9-20 09:57 编辑 ]