NASA鈥檚 financial oversight office is a toothless organisation that does not understand the role of an auditor. That鈥檚 the scathing conclusion of a from Congressional auditors at the US Government Accountability Office.
Based at NASA headquarters in Washington DC, the NASA Office of the Inspector General (OIG) is tasked with improving the space agency鈥檚 efficiency while also identifying mismanagement and abuse of the space agency鈥檚 $17 billion annual budget.
But in an analysis of the 71 NASA programme audits the OIG performed between 2006 and 2007, the GAO says that only one audit identified any potential cost savings. The GAO says that makes NASA鈥檚 oversight office poor value for the money 鈥� saving only 36 cents for every dollar spent on its investigative operations, compared with an average of $9.49 for other federal agencies.
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The GAO says the OIG should bring in third-party experts to help it properly understand the role of an auditor. But responding to a draft copy of the GAO report, Robert Cobb, the embattled head of the OIG, countered that the report used 鈥渟elective and incomplete data鈥�.
Cobb has been at loggerheads with critics before over his alleged closeness to the NASA hierarchy in the past and over his abrasive management style, which some suggest is behind poor morale at the OIG and an associated high staff turnover rate.
Politicians have had enough. Bart Gordon, chairman of the and the man who asked for the GAO investigation, wants the Obama administration to remove Cobb from his post. 鈥淣ASA spends billions of dollars with private contractors and how much money Mr. Cobb left on the table due to his failures to manage his office is hard to imagine,鈥� he said in a statement. 鈥淭he country can鈥檛 afford Mr. Cobb.鈥�
