We reviewed the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) violation report regarding the misuse of a government purchase card in accordance with the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) implementing guidance and the Government Charge Card Abuse Prevention Act of 2012.   HUD is responsible for the violation report and the conclusions expressed in the report.  Our objective was to evaluate the fairness of the information presented in HUD’s violation report.   

In its report, HUD stated that no confirmed violations occurred during the period April 1 to September 30, 2013.  Thus, there were no adverse personnel actions taken by HUD.  Our review did not disclose any violations by HUD personnel that were required to be reported during the reporting period.  However, we noted the following areas of concern in HUD’s internal controls that could impact its ability to prevent and identify violations in the purchase card program:  (1) unblocked high-risk merchant category codes, (2) inconsistent monthly transaction reviews, (3) hampered split purchase analysis, and (4) oversight staffing constraints.

Our work in this area is ongoing, and we will review these issues further as we perform the fiscal year 2014 risk assessment and audit of HUD’s credit card programs.  Thus, there are no recommendations in this report.