Washington, DC — Kenneth Dieffenbach, Executive Director of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC), testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Government Operations Subcommittee, on Tuesday, March 11, 2025, at a hearing titled, “Shifting Gears: Moving from Recovery to Prevention of Improper Payments and Fraud.”
In his testimony, Executive Director Dieffenbach described how the PRAC has used data analytics to prevent improper payments and fraud, and urged Congress to sustain its capabilities past the PRAC’s scheduled sunset in September 2025 and to expand its jurisdiction to all federal spending. Among Executive Director Dieffenbach’s comments:
“Since 2020, the PRAC and our partner Inspectors General have alerted agency leadership to potential risks and emerging fraud schemes, investigated thousands of pandemic fraud-related cases, and used data to identify potential fraud and other forms of improper payments more quickly. Today’s hearing comes at a particularly critical time because, unless Congress takes action, one of the most significant tools it has created to improve program integrity will be lost.”
“If Congress authorizes an extension, the PRAC can continue to support law enforcement efforts to investigate fraud as we have done to date related to over 1,000 investigations with 23,000 subjects under investigation with a potential fraud loss of over $2.4 billion.”
“As we move beyond the pandemic, the focus of the PRAC and its data analytics center should be expanded to prevent and detect fraud and improper payments in all federal government programs, especially those administered by states and territories.”
Executive Director Dieffenbach emphasized in his testimony:
The need for agencies and oversight bodies to keep pace with the evolving fraud landscape.
The PRAC responded to the widespread fraud that occurred in pandemic relief programs by quickly establishing a data analytics center, making it possible to flag weaknesses in programs, uncover schemes used by fraudsters to evade program controls, connect seemingly unconnected bad actors, and identify instances where applicants fabricated information. As seen during the pandemic, anyone from around the world can apply for federal benefits from any or all 56 states and territories. The federal government must work with the states to improve data sharing to address these new and ever-changing threats to program integrity.
The need for agencies to foster a culture of fraud prevention and incentivize staff to balance pre-award due diligence with disbursing funds.
As the PRAC and member Offices of Inspectors General (OIGs) have raised in our work, fraud prevention must be considered part of an agency’s core mission. Staff should be required to follow through on risk mitigation plans, including the use of a data analytics function like those the PRAC offers to identify potentially fraudulent applications, and to own and document the risks they have chosen to accept. The PRAC’s Blueprint for Enhanced Program Integrity extensively documents lessons learned and best practices to help strengthen federal programs and protect them from fraud.
The need for agencies to understand the fraud-fighting benefits of enhanced data sharing and data analytics.
Enhanced data sharing and analytics allow for greater visibility and improved opportunities to prevent fraud before money is disbursed, make the investigative process more effective and efficient, and allow for the development of risk dashboards that consolidate key data and automatically analyze the data for red flags. The existence of a centralized data system makes it possible for agencies to identify hidden connections between fraud schemes and bad actors that are otherwise virtually impossible to flag manually.
With the support of Congress, the PRAC has been at the forefront of responsible and effective data sharing and analysis to identify hidden patterns, networks, and other anomalies among program applications and payment transactions.
Read the Executive Director’s full statement.
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The PRAC was established by the CARES Act to promote transparency and support independent oversight of the funds provided by the CARES Act and other related emergency spending bills. In addition to its coordination and oversight responsibilities, the PRAC is tasked with supporting efforts to “prevent and detect fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement [and] mitigate major risks that cut across program and agency boundaries.”
If you have additional questions, please contact Lisa Reijula at lisa.reijula@cigie.gov.