Review of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Oversight of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief Funds for Fiscal Years 2007 Through 2009

Our review found that CDC did not always monitor recipients' use of President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) funds in accordance with departmental and other Federal requirements. CDC implements PEPFAR, working with ministries of health and other public health partners to combat HIV/AIDS by strengthening health systems and building sustainable HIV/AIDS programs in more than 75 countries in Africa, Asia, Central and South America, and the Caribbean. HHS receives PEPFAR funds from the Department of State through a memorandum of agreement.

There was evidence that CDC performed some monitoring of recipients' use of PEPFAR funds. However, most of the award files did not include all required documents or evidence to demonstrate that CDC performed required monitoring on all cooperative agreements. Of the 30 cooperative agreements in our sample, the award file for only 1 agreement contained all required documents. The remaining 29 award files were incomplete. In addition, 14 of 21 files were missing audit reports. (A report was not yet due for 9 of the 30 cooperative agreements.) The lack of required documentation demonstrates that CDC has not exercised proper stewardship over Federal PEPFAR funds because it did not consistently follow departmental and other Federal requirements in monitoring PEPFAR recipients.

We recommended that CDC follow departmental and other Federal requirements in monitoring recipients' use of PEPFAR funds. CDC concurred with our recommendation and described the corrective actions it had taken to strengthen internal controls and to foster a strong internal control environment.