Federal Reports

This report summarizes the oversight work performed by EAC OIG during the 6-month period ended September 30, 2008.

We audited $7.9 million of costs billed to TVA by a contractor for supplying ammonia and providing engineering and technical services for ammonia facilities to various TVA fossil plants. In summary, we found (1) the prices billed for $2.8 million of the ammonia delivered to five TVA fossil plants could not be verified because prices for the ammonia were not included in the contract, (2) TVA was overbilled $106,054 for ammonia shipments to a fossil plant because an incorrect markup had been used, and (3) TVA was billed $4,375 for ineligible surcharges that were not provided for by the contracts. Additionally, we found that TVA did not have a process in place to verify the amount of ammonia that was delivered and subsequently billed to its plants. We recommend TVA management (1) recover the overbilled costs, (2) determine the reasonableness of the ammonia prices billed for the five TVA fossil plants, and (3) implement controls to independently verify the quantities of ammonia being delivered to TVA's plants.

This review was the first in a series of reviews that will benchmark TVA's performance in key areas and answer the question, "How is TVA doing in regards to Customer Relations." In conducting this review, we (1) assessed key performance measures and their alignment with the key strategic objectives; (2) evaluated TVA's results relative to targets and available benchmark information; and (3) identified key management challenges that could affect how successful TVA is in achieving these strategic objectives.