Seven inspector general offices, including within the Department of Veterans Affairs, have yet to receive appointments from President Barack Obama.
A Senate aide, who declined to go on the record to speak candidly, said the lack of IGs is strange in an administration promising to be “the most open administration since the Roman empire.”
“Without watchdogs,” the aide said, “nobody will bark.”
The secretary of state’s inspector general position was empty for five years until it was filled four months after Hillary Clinton left the office amid allegations surrounding her role in the Benghazi attack. The VA office only has a deputy inspector general.
Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee chairman Ron Johnson called for a hearing Wednesday to investigate Obama’s failure to appoint these positions.
The inspector general position was created in 1978 “to provide a means for keeping the head of the establishment and the Congress fully and currently informed about problems and deficiencies relating to the administration of such programs and operations and the necessity for and progress of corrective action.”
Almost every inspector general’s website contains a hotline to report “fraud, waste or abuse.”
In those departments that do not have an inspector general, this hotline seems to be the only system in place that holds the department accountable.
“It’s up to the president,” said Catherine Gromek, congressional relations officer at the VA’s Office of Inspector General. “We’re waiting for the president to appoint someone.”
The full list of departments where there is only an acting or deputy inspector general, confirmed by Council of the Inspectors General, is below:
Obama nominated Ann Calvaresi Barr for USAID on May 11, whose nomination has been referred to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.