Monitoring Vendors One of the easiest ways to steal from an agency is to set up a dummy vendor. When a delivery
comes, a dishonest employee could change the agency’s address and deliver the government supplies to a dif ferent address. Unless vendor purchases are being monitored, a government employee could get away with this type of fraud for years. Someone other than the person who orders supplies should review deliveries and approve invoices that are sent to the accounting office for payment. This is called separation of duties.
Preventing Bribery It is dif ficult to stop contractors from bribing government employees. Examples of contrac-
tors who have an incentive to commit bribery include real estate developers who want to buy land owned by the government or obtain building permits. Government land sales and permit- ting processes are slow, detailed activities, and interested parties may pay monies to government employees to facilitate the transactions. It is dif ficult to monitor an illegal activity in which only two people are involved, but luckily, most bribery involves more than two people and eventually someone is caught.