File before reading; when the inspector general speaks, nobody listens.

• Author: Shuger, Scott
• Position: Department of Housing and Urban Development, includes related information

File Before Reading When the inspector general speaks, nobody listens

Do you remember that press conference in 1986 where Ronald Reagan revealed, "Repeated cases of fraud and abuse within HUD programs have resulted in substantial losses to HUD and the taxpayer. Investors, speculators, real estate agents, and salespersons have misused the programs for personal gain"? How about the speech around that time by Rep. Barney Frank, which disclosed that "a high percentage of units in HUD's existing public housing program have significant violations of HUD's housing quality standards"? Or that story from The New York Times in the fall of 1988, the one by Martin Tolchin with information like this: "The majority of modified rehabilitation projects funded by HUD over the last five years were selected without the type of open competition intended in HUD regulations"?

If you don't remember, there's a good reason. The press conference didn't happen, the speech didn't get made, and the story wasn't written. But all that information was available at those times - in the HUD inspector general's reports. And these reports were public information - fair game for presidents, congressmen, and journalists. True enough, inspectors general, being career bureaucrats, tend to whisper rather than shout and characteristically favor oblique phrases over acute ones.* But aren't the above facts at least a little attention-getting? Shouldn't they have piqued the curiosity of the president's aides? Aren't congressional staff members and reporters paid to start investigations into situations like these? But in fact, the HUD inspector general gave a scandal and nobody came.

There are many morals to be gleaned from runaway failures of government like HUD. One of them is that no one had been paying enough attention to the nation's inspectors general. Oh, sure, now that the HUD scandal has blossomed so colossally, people are starting to listen to the inspector general for that department. (Lately, material from HUD inspector general reports has found its way into the The Washington Post the day after the reports were released - quite a change from the recent past when the Post didn't even have a reporter on the HUD beat.) But only time will tell if that's really meaningful attention or merely scandal-driven reporting by the press and damage control by HUD. And what about the inspectors general at all the other departments? It's essential that they be quality people with the ability to identify and analyze the problems of their agencies and with the courage to report what they discover. But it takes day-to-day scrutiny of their reports to increase the pressure on inspectors general to be just that. In the absence of raging scandal, is anyone really listening to them?

Asked who gets inspector general reports, a press spokesman at the Office of the Inspector General says, "I'm not aware of a copy being sent to...