Photo By Corinna Baltos | Kpakpo Hounzouke-Akue an auditor with U.S. Army Sustainment Command’s Internal...... read more read more
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ROCK ISLAND ARSNENAL, Ill. – For many, the idea of an audit is often met with apprehension and unease. But for Kpakpo Hounzouke-Akue, an auditor with U.S. Army Sustainment Command’s Internal Review and Audit Compliance Office, it is a routine scheduled event.
Hounzouke-Akue has worked at ASC since August 2016. He was hired after he graduated from Western Illinois University with a degree in accounting.
“Employees from the Army Audit Agency came to my class and did a presentation about working for them,” said Hounzouke-Akue. “It sounded like a good thing, so I applied.” While Hounzouke-Akue didn’t get hired by AAA, he was hired by ASC.
ASC’s IRACO plays a critical role in ensuring accountability, operational efficiency and regulatory compliance within the command. Tasked with, among other things, overseeing internal audits and acting as a liaison during external audits, the office helps the command maintain transparency and accountability in managing its resources.
ASC has a worldwide presence in more than 20 countries and 32 states, and employs thousands of Soldiers, Civilians and contractors. ASC is the primary provider of logistics support to the U.S. Army and is a major subordinate command of U.S. Army Materiel Command.
Internal reviews are directed by the commanding general to assess risk and provide reasonable assurance that internal controls and processes are functioning efficiently and effectively.
Hounzouke-Akue is one of four auditors who work at ASC. His job is to conduct internal reviews and provide support for external audits for everyone in the ASC footprint. In such a small office it is imperative that all the auditors maintain awareness of what their teammates are doing.
“Kpakpo is an experienced and competent auditor,” said Tiffany Priebe, a fellow auditor in the IRACO. “He is able to pick up mine and other auditors work with minimal guidance and direction.”
Due to his experience and competence, Hounzouke-Akue is currently working as the lead in an internal audit of the fiscal year 2022 outside the continental U.S. Permanent Change of Station process.
A PCS is the reassignment of military personnel from one duty station or base to another. As part of the PCS process, the DoD handles the logistics of the move, to include picking up and shipping household goods and providing plane tickets or reimbursing driving expenses for the service members and their dependents.
ASC is committed to providing timely, quality service to Soldiers, Civilians and Family members throughout the PCS process – before, during and after the move. One of the ways they do this is by ensuring military personnel receive everything they are entitled to, which is the focus of Hounzouke-Akue’s current project.
While Hounzouke-Akue works on internal audits, his priority is on external audits.
ASC gets audited by three external organizations: the Government Accountability Office, the Department of Defense Inspector General and the AAA.
“External audit agencies develop an annual audit plan of audits that they are going to do,” said Greg Collins, chief of ASC’s IRACO. “The audits usually come from the auditor’s experience from past audits, current events, large amounts of programmed funding, complaints, or requests from Department of Defense leadership.” The exception to this is the GAO.
Their audits are normally based on congressional requests.
As the liaison during external audits Hounzouke-Akue assists in all phases of the external audit – from the entrance conference to the final report.
These types of reviews are lengthy and can take up to a year to complete.
“The external agency will usually announce the audit and within 14 days we will have what is called an entrance conference,” said Collins. “The next phase is the field work phase. This phase can take another 150 plus days, and it includes data gathering, analysis and briefings. The next phase is the reporting phase where the external agency briefs ASC their findings and recommendations. After the report writing phase and meetings have occurred, the audit goes into the command reply phase of the audit’s identified findings. This takes between 30-60 days. The command that has the findings has up to 12 months to correct the findings and close out the audit.”
Hounzouke-Akue said that the most stressful part of the audit is responding to the required actions that the auditors find. “After (the auditing agency) issues their recommendations to correct deficiencies, we have roughly two calendar weeks to make an official command reply.”
While this may seem like a good amount of time, it’s not always the case. While ASC is headquartered in Illinois, its subordinate commands and offices are around the globe. This can make coordinating responses challenging due to different time zones.
For example, when the ASC managed Army Prepositioned Stock-4, located in Korea, was recently audited, the auditing agency had 13 recommendations to improve processes and readiness. ASC had to come up with a corrective action plan for all the recommendations, draft a closure memorandum for approval for ASC subject matter experts, run it through legal and the commanding general for his signature.
The back and forth with recommendations and approval was hampered by the nearly 14-hour time difference which meant an email sent at 9 a.m. from ASC would arrive in the inbox of an employee in Korea at 11 p.m. and be unread for nine hours.
Despite these challenges, the IRACO team perseveres to support the mission. By identifying inefficiencies, mitigating risks, and working closely with external auditors, Hounzouke-Akue and his team strengthens ASC’s ability to responsibly account for and allocate resources while upholding the highest standards of integrity.
| Date Taken: | 04.29.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 04.29.2025 09:25 |
| Story ID: | 496431 |
| Location: | ROCK ISLAND ARSENAL, ILLINOIS, US |
| Web Views: | 42 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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