From Press Release
Today, Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) was joined by Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Claire McCaskill (D-MO) and Ron Johnson (R-WI) to introduce the Saving Federal Dollars Through Better Use of Government Purchase and Travel Cards Act of 2015, legislation that targets waste, fraud and abuse through stronger oversight of federal agency travel and purchase cards spending.
This legislation would prevent charge card misuse and abuse by establishing an Office of Federal Charge Card Analytics and Review within the Government Services Administration to continuously examine charge card purchases made across the federal government. The legislation would facilitate improved anti-fraud information sharing amongst federal agencies that use purchase and travel cards, in addition to requiring those agencies to share best-practices for detecting and preventing waste, fraud and abuse. The bipartisan bill would also encourage agencies to leverage purchasing power through strategic sourcing.
“This bill builds on my Government Charge Card Abuse Prevention Act of 2012 by adding an additional layer of government-wide oversight to the work of individual agency inspectors general,” said Sen. Grassley. “The recent Defense Department inspector general report, which was drafted in response to the 2012 law, highlighted some areas where the Defense Department was not properly implementing the required controls and flagged casinos as a high risk for misuse of charge cards. Our bill will make sure we’re looking for similar patterns of misuse across all federal agencies and that agencies are sharing best practices to prevent misuse and identify potential cost savings.”
Last month, a Department of Defense Office of the Inspector General report detailed how some employees at the Department misused government-issued charge cards to gamble and pay for adult entertainment. This legislation aims to prevent charge card misuse and abuse by implementing more oversight controls for travel and purchase cards across federal agencies.
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