Federal Reports

The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) administers and enforces U.S. export regulations to control the export of goods and technologies for national security and foreign policy purposes. Our objective for this audit was to assess the effectiveness of BIS actions to detect violations of export controls for Russia and Belarus in fiscal years 2022 and 2023.

BIS prevents the diversion or misuse of export-controlled items abroad by conducting pre-license checks and post-shipment verifications—collectively known as end-use checks—on foreign end users for individual export transactions, to help ensure that U.S. exports are being used as intended and to assess the legitimacy of end users.

Overall, we found that BIS needs to strengthen its end-use check process to prevent restricted shipments to Russia and Belarus. Specifically, we found weaknesses in BIS methods to identify and select high-risk shipments for end-use checks; document results and assign final ratings of compliance with export control regulations; and complete enforcement actions to hold potential violators of export controls accountable. These weaknesses undermine the transparency and accountability of BIS’s regulatory oversight and underscore the need for improvements to strengthen and modernize the end-use check process.

We made six recommendations to strengthen and modernize the end-use check process.

The audit objectives were to determine whether program funds were managed in accordance with the ARC and Federal grant requirements.

The audit objectives were to determine whether program funds were managed in accordance with the ARC and Federal grant requirements.

The audit objectives were to determine whether program funds were managed in accordance with the ARC and Federal grant requirements.

Opportunities Exist to Strengthen Investment Management's Disclosure Review Program, Report No. 590

RMA Associates, LLC (RMA), under the oversight of the United States International Development Finance Corporation’s (DFC) Office of Inspector General (OIG), reviewed DFC’s compliance with the Payment Integrity Information Act of 2019 (PIIA) (Public Law 116-117) for the fiscal year (FY) ending September 30, 2025 in accordance with 1) the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Memorandum M-21-19, Transmittal of Appendix C to OMB Circular A-123, Requirements for Payment Integrity Improvement, 2) OMB Circular A-136, Financial Reporting Requirements, July 14, 2025; 3) Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE) Guidance for Payment Integrity Information Act Compliance Reviews, November 2025; and 4) the Government Accountability Office (GAO) Generally Accepted Government Auditing Standards (GAGAS).
We conducted this review in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the review to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our objectives. We believe the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our objectives.
 

In addition to the compliance criteria, we also reviewed DFC’s risk assessment process and efforts to prevent and reduce improper payments (IPs) and unknown payments (UPs). Our review was conducted from February 2026 through April 2026.
 

What We Concluded
RMA concluded that DFC complied with PIIA for FY 2025 (Table 1). DFC was compliant with requirements applicable to the agency for FY 2025. We noted that DFC performed risk assessments in FY 2025 using criteria defined by OMB Circular A-123 and conformed to this guidance for preventing and reducing IPs and UPs. We found DFC had completely and accurately reported payment recapture reporting information on PaymentAccuracy.gov.