Summary

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Export Enhancement Program (EEP), focusing on: (1) recent program changes; and (2) the program's continued role in fostering the liberalization of agricultural trade.

GAO found that: (1) while its commodity divisions maintained files on each proposed program under review, the Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) did not identify a proposal until the division forwarded it for review; (2) FAS top management was not aware of all proposals under consideration and could not monitor the proposals' progress or ensure that all proposals received equal treatment; (3) since FAS officials did not verify all categories of required information, FAS could not ensure that ineligible exporters were not participating in the program; (4) FAS officials received the necessary information to make informed decisions, but still did not document adjustments to price and bonus amounts, making it difficult to determine whether bonus calculations were higher than needed to make a sale, particularly when bonuses exceeded sales prices; (5) FAS developed written guidelines for determining price and bonus levels to require that all relevant calculations be fully documented; and (6) to further improve its operations, FAS was in the process of recouping overpayments and developing and implementing a new computer program, but further improvements in management controls were still needed.