Annual Risk Assessment of VA's Charge Card Programs

The VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted an annual risk assessment of VA’s charge card program evaluating the transactions of the three types of charge card business lines—purchase cards (including convenience checks), travel cards, and fleet cards—for fiscal year 2018. The team reviewed applicable VA policies, procedures, and other controls. The team also compared FY 2017 with FY 2018 charge card data to identify transactions or patterns of activity that represent potentially illegal, improper, or erroneous charge card purchases. The OIG determined that the purchase card program remains at medium risk of illegal, improper, or erroneous purchases, as previously assessed for FY 2017. Data mining of purchase card transactions identified potential misuse of purchase cards. OIG investigations, audits, and reviews continue to identify patterns of purchase card transactions that do not comply with the Federal Acquisition Regulation and VA policies and procedures. The OIG also found that VA’s Travel Card Program and Fleet Card Program both remain at low risk for illegal, improper, or erroneous purchases. The risk assessment team assigned a low risk level to both programs primarily because data mining established a low percentage of potential duplicate and split purchases. Travel card transactions represented only about 2.7 percent of the approximately $4.8 billion spent by VA on charge card transactions during FY 2018. Fleet card transactions represented only about 0.4 percent of that amount.