IG finds a senior official used position to encourage
agency to hire personal acquaintances
A senior Department of Energy (DOE) official used his position to encourage the agency to hire a longtime friend and referred 10 more personal acquaintances to a DOE contractor for a series of hiring decisions that created the perception of favoritism, according to federal watchdogs.
The official is a senior employee in DOE’s Loan Programs Office (LPO), which has come under fire for using taxpayer funds to guarantee loans to green energy companies, some of which, including the bankrupt solar company Solyndra, subsequently faced financial difficulties.
According to a report published Wednesday by DOE’s inspector general (IG), the senior LPO official hired a “friend” with whom he had a “longstanding personal relationship” for a vacant position in the office.
“The circumstances surrounding the individual’s selection may have been influenced, at least in part, by the senior LPO official’s prior relationship and past experience,” the inspector general found.
The report recommends that DOE authorities “determine whether the senior LPO official violated the standards of ethical conduct or engaged in irregular hiring practices and take necessary action.”
Whether a violation took place was not immediately clear, due in part to the lack of documentation supporting some of the hiring decisions.
The IG was unable to determine whether personal connections improperly advantaged the LPO officer’s friend, “and whether the senior LPO official fully considered other qualified applicants, because no candidate evaluation records existed for this particular hiring action,” the report noted.
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