Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This testimony discusses GAO's follow-up on the audit of key internal controls over purchase card activity at two Navy units based in San Diego--the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR) Systems Center and the Navy Public Works Center (NPWC). A breakdown in internal controls over $68 million purchase card transactions in fiscal year 2000 left these two units vulnerable to fraudulent, improper, and abusive purchases and to theft and misuse of government property. Although both units improved the overall control environment, including reducing the number of cardholders, increasing the number of approving officials, and decreased purchase card usage, serious weaknesses persisted in three key control environment areas. First, SPAWAR Systems Center needs to ensure that all cardholders receive required training and that this training is documented. Second, SPAWAR Systems Center needs to more carefully implement internal review and oversight activities, which have been ineffective. Third, GAO identified a significant impairment of management "tone at the top" at SPAWAR Systems Center during the last quarter of fiscal year 2001. The two basic internal controls over the purchase card program that GAO tested remained ineffective during the last quarter …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has laid the groundwork for an integrated, departmentwide enterprise architecture--a blueprint for evolving its information systems and developing new systems to optimize their mission value. Crucial executive support is in place and the department has a strategy to define products and processes critical to its development. VA is now recruiting a chief architect to help implement and manage the enterprise architecture. VA has tried to strengthen its information security management program by mandating information security performance standards and greater management accountability for senior executives. It has also updated security policies, procedures, and standards to implement critical security measures. Despite these efforts, VA continues to report pervasive and serious information security weaknesses. The Veterans Benefits Administration is still far from launching a modernized system to replace its aging benefits delivery network. The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) has made good progress in expanding the use of its decision support system (DSS) for clinical and financial decision making. The use of DSS data for the fiscal year 2002 resource allocation process, and a requirement that veteran integrated service network directors better account for their use …