The Minority Business Development Agency’s (MBDA’s) Business Center program is a network of centers supporting minority business enterprises that are funded through cooperative agreements with private-sector entities, state entities, native entities, and institutes of higher education. MBDA has an oversight role to ensure that Business Centers meet the terms and conditions of their cooperative agreements and report accomplishments in a consistent, accurate manner.
We conducted this audit to follow up on a 2017 audit that found issues with how MBDA administers the Business Center program. The objective for this audit was to determine the adequacy of MBDA’s oversight of the MBDA Business Center program to ensure requirements are met.
We found significant issues with MBDA’s oversight and monitoring of its Business Center program, similar to our 2017 audit. Specifically, we found that MBDA did not (1) sufficiently monitor Business Center activities for compliance with award requirements, (2) ensure performance metrics reported by Business Centers were accurate and reliable, (3) address Business Center single audit findings, and (4) perform required Business Center site inspections. Consequently, MBDA cannot ensure that Business Centers comply with award terms and conditions. Further, MBDA cannot ensure that Business Center program goals are being met.
We recommended that MBDA consider improvements to monitoring and oversight when finalizing its plan for continuing operations as it implements Executive Order 14238.
