A follow-up to our previous report, we look at best practices to help companies avoid problems at a time of record infrastructure spending.
Amtrak workers work in a borehole for the North River Tunnel, which connects New York and New Jersey, in 2022. In a new report, Amtrak’s Office of Inspector General discusses how data analytics can help prevent fraud in large contracts and procurements. Amtrak
WASHINGTON — Amtrak’s Office of Inspector General says in a new report that data analytics can help avoid fraud in the company’s procurement process, which handles historic amounts of funding for infrastructure projects.
The report, released on Wednesday, April 17, is a follow-up to last year’s report which identified procurement and contracting as one of the four areas where the company was most at risk of fraud. [see “Amtrak Inspector General warns of fraud risk …,” Trains News Wire, May 19, 2023]According to the latest report, the Office of Inspector General investigated 110 fraud-related cases between 2017 and September 2023, helping to recover $269 million in restitution, forfeiture and other areas. The Office also issued 25 audit reports that identified vulnerabilities during that time.
The new report also states that best practices indicate organizations collect data in a format that helps them recognize potential fraud, such as patterns of wins and losses by the same group of bidders, a single organization creating multiple identities to appear competitive, or sudden increases in spending by a vendor or a high number of change orders. The report includes an appendix detailing forms of contract and procurement fraud and how data can help identify them.
The full report can be found here.