As a result, Internal Affairs did not provide the necessary safeguard to protect the reputation, operations and organizational effectiveness of the Customs Service.” “Office of Enforcement (OE) activities in the Southwest Region suffer from a lack of national direction and from confused and competing lines of authority that undermine effectiveness. Its responsibilities should include the comprehensive and aggressive internal inspection program recommended by the panel and investigation of matters related to mismanagement, criminal misconduct, and serious noncriminal misconduct. Customs should establish a national recruitment policy and mobility policy for the Office of Enforcement. For example, the panel’s Integrity recommendation 1 (p. 20) states in part that “ll allegations of corruption should be expeditiously investigated by Internal Affairs.” The panel did not define what it meant by “expeditiously.” In our categorization of this recommendation, we did not assess the panel’s recommendation for “expeditiously;” therefore, we did not assess this recommendation on the basis of actions taken “expeditiously.”
Several of the panel’s recommendations referred generally to other recommendations in the panel’s report . Relevant Blue Ribbon Panel issues such as managerial effectiveness, performance indicators, and supervisory, employee, and outside agencies (including U.S. Partially implemented. -Identified performance problems should be dealt with openly. Fully implemented. (See whistleblowers recommendation 4.) Because OSC is an agency external to Customs, Customs cannot ensure that Customs employees’ whistleblower allegations are given priority.
Why GAO Did This Study

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the U.S. Customs Service's implementation of blue ribbon panel recommendations concerning allegations of corruption and mismanagement by Customs employees.

What GAO Found

GAO found that Customs: (1) accepted the findings of the panel and took steps to rectify the problems identified by the panel; (2) restructured its Office of Internal Affairs to address issues of political corruption, mismanagement, and serious noncriminal misconduct; (3) established a direct line of authority in its Office of Enforcement to eliminate confusion among the many competing lines of authority noted by the panel in its recommendations; (4) strengthened its policy on managerial accountability; (5) created internal inspection programs to ensure that employees' ethical conduct is in compliance with the panel's recommendations; and (6) implemented its policy for protecting whistleblowers, as recommended.