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GAO-24-106655 1 (2024-02-13)

handle is hein.gao/gaopwc0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Why This Matters Key Takeaways In response to the over $4.6 trillion of federal funding provided under the CARES Act and other COVID-19 relief laws, agencies acted quickly to create new programs and scale up existing ones, including by awarding contracts and grants. Because of their scale and speed, pandemic relief programs have been vulnerable to significant risk of fraudulent activities. Whistleblowers can play an important role in identifying waste, fraud, or abuse in government operations, including those carried out by federal contractors and grantees. The CARES Act created two new oversight bodies for pandemic relief programs: the Special Inspector General for Pandemic Recovery (SIGPR) and the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC). The act also assigned existing inspectors general (IG) responsibilities for conducting audits and investigations related to the relief programs. The Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency's (CIGIE) Integrity Committee is an oversight body for IGs and other designated officials in Offices of Inspector General. All three entities accept tips about potential wrongdoing and provide public contact information for submitting such tips. The Joint Explanatory Statement accompanying the James M. Inhofe National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023 includes a provision for us to review the application of whistleblower protections to disclosures by contractor and grantee employees to SIGPR, PRAC, and the CIGIE Integrity Committee.1 This report provides the entities' views on the scope of whistleblower protections for contractor and grantee employees, the number of disclosures they have received, and the entities' procedures for handling such disclosures. SIGPR officials told us that contractor and grantee employees who make disclosures to SIGPR are protected against retaliation under federal law. PRAC officials told us that, regarding disclosures made to them, there is ambiguity in the protections for contractor and grantee whistleblowers in section 4712 of title 41 of the U.S. Code. Integrity Committee officials told us that they have not assessed whether this statutory provision applies to disclosures made to the committee. Officials from the three oversight bodies told us that they are not aware of having received any disclosures or retaliation complaints from federal contractor or grantee whistleblowers. The three oversight bodies have processes in place for receiving and referring whistleblower disclosures and retaliation complaints. Page 1 GAO-24-106655 WHISTLEBLOWERS Page 1 GAO-24-106655 WHISTLEBLOWERS

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