Powered by OpenAIRE graph
Found an issue? Give us feedback
image/svg+xml art designer at PLoS, modified by Wikipedia users Nina, Beao, JakobVoss, and AnonMoos Open Access logo, converted into svg, designed by PLoS. This version with transparent background. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Open_Access_logo_PLoS_white.svg art designer at PLoS, modified by Wikipedia users Nina, Beao, JakobVoss, and AnonMoos http://www.plos.org/ World Journal of Adv...arrow_drop_down
image/svg+xml art designer at PLoS, modified by Wikipedia users Nina, Beao, JakobVoss, and AnonMoos Open Access logo, converted into svg, designed by PLoS. This version with transparent background. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Open_Access_logo_PLoS_white.svg art designer at PLoS, modified by Wikipedia users Nina, Beao, JakobVoss, and AnonMoos http://www.plos.org/
World Journal of Advanced Research and Reviews
Article . 2025 . Peer-reviewed
Data sources: Crossref
image/svg+xml art designer at PLoS, modified by Wikipedia users Nina, Beao, JakobVoss, and AnonMoos Open Access logo, converted into svg, designed by PLoS. This version with transparent background. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Open_Access_logo_PLoS_white.svg art designer at PLoS, modified by Wikipedia users Nina, Beao, JakobVoss, and AnonMoos http://www.plos.org/
ZENODO
Article . 2025
License: CC BY
Data sources: ZENODO
https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5...
Article . 2025 . Peer-reviewed
Data sources: Crossref
ZENODO
Article . 2025
License: CC BY
Data sources: Datacite
ZENODO
Article . 2025
License: CC BY
Data sources: Datacite
versions View all 4 versions
addClaim

Leveraging Predictive Analytics to Strengthen Financial Oversight in Government Expenditure: A Case for Public Sector Reform

Authors: Otim, Herbert; Arinda, Mercy Elizabeth; Oware, Frank Appiah;

Leveraging Predictive Analytics to Strengthen Financial Oversight in Government Expenditure: A Case for Public Sector Reform

Abstract

Governments increasingly seek to strengthen transparency and accountability in public financial management, yet traditional, retrospective audits struggle to surface irregularities at the speed and scale of modern procurement. This study develops and applies a practical analytics framework to U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) procurement transactions for FY2025, demonstrating how unsupervised learning can triage large award corpora into tractable, audit-salient subsets. Using 16,581 transactions from the USAspending Award Data Archive, we engineer features aligned to established risk theories: approval lag (solicitation-to-action timing), vendor history (prior awards and concentration), award magnitude (obligations, base-and-options, potential ceilings), and award structure/competition (IDV relationships, pricing type, and extent competed)—and apply Isolation Forest (contamination = 1%). The model flags 166 atypical transactions (≈1%) characterized by (i) extreme potential award ceilings (median ≈ $8B), (ii) order-dependent pricing under Indefinite Delivery Vehicles (IDVs), and (iii) competition pathways reported as “full and open after exclusion of sources.” Sensitivity analysis shows anomalies are highly threshold-dependent (0–2% contamination yields 0–≈330 flags), underscoring the need to calibrate cutoffs to investigative capacity. While findings are not determinations of non-compliance, they delineate priority cases for follow-up testing (e.g., ceiling-to-obligation reconciliation, order-level pricing documentation, justification memos for exclusions). The framework translates directly to oversight practice via score-band triage, dashboarding, and model governance (documentation, fairness checks, periodic recalibration). Limitations include the absence of ground-truth labels and potential measurement error in administrative data; future work should integrate supervised models (e.g., logistic/ensemble learners) using adjudicated outcomes and employ explainability techniques to attribute anomaly drivers. Overall, results illustrate that predictive analytics can complement audits, reduce detection lag, and inform evidence-based policy within public procurement systems.

Related Organizations
Keywords

Government Expenditure, Public Sector Reform, Predictive Analytics, Anomaly Detection, Procurement Oversight, Financial Accountability

  • BIP!
    Impact byBIP!
    selected citations
    These citations are derived from selected sources.
    This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
    0
    popularity
    This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network.
    Average
    influence
    This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
    Average
    impulse
    This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network.
    Average
Powered by OpenAIRE graph
Found an issue? Give us feedback
selected citations
These citations are derived from selected sources.
This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Citations provided by BIP!
popularity
This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Popularity provided by BIP!
influence
This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Influence provided by BIP!
impulse
This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Impulse provided by BIP!
0
Average
Average
Average
Green
gold