OFHEO Picks D&T for Fannie Audit

The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight has picked Deloitte & Touche LLP to spearhead a year-long forensic audit into the accounting policies and practices of Fannie Mae.D&T will begin working on the audit immediately, and OFHEO may wind up spending as much as $5.7 million on the contract. OFHEO said it will examine, "among other things, accounting policies and internal controls" at the government-sponsored enterprise, "with emphasis on identification of any control weaknesses or unusual transactions." Fannie reported in November that it had made an unintentional accounting error that changed the value of its shareholder equity by $1 billion. The change, though, did not affect earnings. D&T was selected from a group of five vendors that answered OFHEO's request for proposal. OFHEO can be found online at http://www.ofheo.gov.