Audit of Interest Paid to U.S. Banks under USAID Egypts Commodity ImportProgram 60102263

Report No. 6-263-01-002-P October 29, 2000 MEMORANDUM TO: USAID/Egypt Director, Willard J. Pearson, Jr. FROM: Acting RIG/Cairo, Thomas C. Asmus SUBJECT: Audit of Interest Paid to U.S. Banks under USAID/Egypt’s Commodity Import Program This is our final report on the subject audit. We reviewed your written comments on the draft report and have included them in Appendix II. This report contains one recommendation for your action. Your written comments indicate that as a result of the audit the Mission has examined its procedures and has taken further steps to reduce the average number of days interest paid to U.S. banks under the Mission’s Commodity 1Import Program (CIP). However, given these improvements, the Mission believes that 2insufficient savings potential remains to justify implementing an important part of our recommendation, i.e., to implement an alternative U.S. Treasury payment system on a pilot basis to determine the workload issues and savings potential from that system. We believe that the Treasury system has the potential to further reduce or eliminate interest payments to the banks. Hence, we do not consider that a management decision has been reached on the recommendation. Please advise me within 30 days of any additional actions planned or taken by the Mission to implement the recommendation. I appreciate the cooperation and courtesies extended to my staff during the audit. Background USAID/Egypt (the Mission) and the Government ...