Dear Friend,

We're still hammering away at the issue of contractor oversight and misconduct at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.  Earlier this week, I testified before the Commission on Wartime Contracting about the urgent need to improve oversight and management at the State Department, protect whistleblowers, and clarify the role of private contractors in our security operations. 

Ultimately, the responsibility for this contractor's misconduct lies with the State Department, and the agency will need to make some big adjustments to ensure this doesn't happen again.  You may read our recommendations in my prepared testimony. Government Executive has coverage of the hearing, and video of testimony by myself and by one of the whistleblowers who helped expose the misconduct is available here.  For your convenience, we've also consolidated all of our materials on this issue on our website.

We're also hard at work uprooting the culture of "ethical failure" that plagues the recovery of natural resource royalty payments.  I'll be testifying before Congress tomorrow, arguing for a better system than the Royalty-In-Kind program, which neglected to collect hundreds of millions of dollars on behalf of taxpayers.  The good news is that our hard work in this area is paying off: Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar testified earlier today that he will end the RIK program.  Be sure to check our website tomorrow to read my prepared testimony.

I'd like to thank you again for your support and involvement with POGO.  Your assistance and participation is vital to our mission, and I hope that you'll continue to join us in our fight for a better government. 

Danielle Brian
Executive Director

PS, don't forget to stay up to date with us on our blog and on twitter.