NCUA Stewardship...."Fully Confident"...

"Bovine Scatology"?

As we continue to take a look at and a whiff of NCUA's $42+ million "Pass The Cash" contingency legal fee arrangements, it might be wise to drop back a bit and see what some other folks have said about these seemingly "wink wink" deals:

"It is hard for us to understand how the arrangement isn't in violation of the Executive Order", adding that it is "at least a clear violation of the spirit of the Executive Order."
               - Lisa A Rickard, President of the Institute for Legal 
                      Reform (WSJ - 10/26/12)

"Contingency fee arrangements impose exorbitant or unnecessary costs on taxpayers who have a right to expect the government to operate transparently and efficiently."
- Congressman Darrell Issa, Chair House Oversight Committee
       on Gov't Reform (WSJ -10/26/12)

"A Justice Department spokesman said that officials were unaware of any other federal agency that has outside firms on contingency fee contracts." (WSJ - 10/26/12)

But as we all have come to learn over the last several years, NCUA doesn't seem to really care what others think - whether its plain old CU folks, their regulatory peers, CPAs, taxpayers, or some quaint Executive Order from two Presidents of the United States of America.

After all NCUA is an "independent government agency" apparently answerable and accountable to no one.  NCUA operates in its own separate universe in Alexandria; NCUA follows its own set of rules.

Or does it ....

On page 9 of the OIG's  letter to Congressman Issa you find, amid all the redactions, the following interesting observation under "Procedures for Hiring Outside Counsel":

"Bovine Scat"

"However, with regard to its formal "Procedures for Hiring Outside Counsel"(Procedures), we found that while the NCUA complied substantively with the Procedures, it did not adhere completely to them in selecting the two firms."

This is OIG's "twisted poodlese" for NCUA doesn't even follow its own rules when the Agency finds them to be "inconvenient".

"Bov Scat"

Despite OIG's "clean opinion" letter to a U.S. Congressman, NCUA had four specific "Procedures" it was required to follow before signing these "wink winks". 

The two rules of its own creation which NCUA
 failed to comply with were rule 2) "minimizing cost to the credit union and [NCUSIF]" and 3) "avoiding any appearance of conflict or favoritism".  (Check it out for yourself on page  9.)

"B. S." !

Other than that according to the"OMG...OIG"....

  Everything is A-OK AT NCUA !!