This walk-through now lives in the hub. Everything here — the lessons, the record, the actions — is gathered in one place: The Oversight Hub →
LEARNING MISSION
The Oversight Hub
Everything on this topic
Read the record: What needs to happen now — six fixes · Candidates side by side: How oversight works — accountability corner · Learn the system: Fraud, Waste & Abuse 101 · This page: The guided mission
Why this guide matters
Fraud, waste, and abuse survive in the dark; every audit read and question asked shrinks the dark. The watchers work better when the people watch too.
How we’ll know it’s working
Honest, countable signs only: questions submitted · instruments gathering answers · pages read and rated useful · and more people who can explain how these decisions actually get made. Counts publish, dated, on Community Findings.
≈ 5 min read · or listen, or skim the bold lines
D · Draft — not verified Not line-checked against the Navajo Nation Code. How we verify →
Data & your voice
Surveys, by subject · the results so far · Where’s the data? — every mission runs on what the community measures.
A guided path through the Nation’s oversight system — what fraud, waste, and abuse actually are, who is supposed to catch them, how two live cases unfolded, what the candidates say, and what you can do. Walk it in order or jump to what you need. This is a Learning Mission: the outcome is a citizen who can read an oversight story and know exactly which questions to ask.
Step 1 — Learn the system
The foundation, in four lessons
Learning — take them in this order
1. Fraud, Waste, Abuse & Oversight 101 — the definitions and the watchdog offices.
2. Ethics & Rules, explained by its former director — how a complaint against an elected official actually travels.
3. Audit & Performance Review 101 — why follow-up matters more than findings.
4. Transparency, Accountability & Reporting 101 — what makes “I’ll be accountable” checkable.
Step 2 — See it live: two case studies
Theory becomes skill on real stories. Both case studies report documented events with sources and reach no verdict — they exist so you can practice.
The ZenniHome Housing Contracts — hearings, subpoenas, the external audit, and a special prosecutor: the whole oversight system operating at once on one $24 million question.
The Sober-Living Scheme — the Arizona Medicaid fraud that targeted Diné relatives: how a licensing gap became a seam, and how Operation Rainbow Bridge answered.
Step 3 — Consult the record
What the candidates say
Community — the Consult stage
Accountability runs through nearly every interview. Read the candidate comparison — the Transparency & Accountability topic gathers what each candidate proposed, with private judging tools — and the accountability hub maps the whole oversight landscape the candidates are talking about.
Step 4 — Test yourself
Deal a board of Diné Civics Jeopardy — eight of its twenty categories are accountability-focused (Ethics & Rules, Watchdogs & Oversight, How a Complaint Travels, Follow the Money, and more), and every answer cites its lesson. Or play Which Jurisdiction Is It? to practice the who’s-responsible question.
Step 5 — Act, if you’ve observed something
From learning to doing
Official — the pathways
The companion Accountability Mission: How to File a Complaint walks the actual filing pathways — Ethics & Rules, the Auditor, the fraud hotline, ONLR — with the document-first habit. Official contacts live in Resources.
Contribute — what have you seen?
Patterns in what the community reports become the next missions. Share an observation through the forms on the complaint mission or suggest a mission directly. Your private progress lives on My Civic Journey.
Goes with: Hidden Obstacles · The Runaround · When the Law Isn’t Followed
Related
All guides · Accountability · Civic Academy · My Civic Journey
Why this law exists
In 1987 a middleman bought a ranch for $26.25 million and sold it to the Navajo Nation five minutes later for $33.4 million. Two years of crisis followed. On July 20, 1989, Arnold Begay and Jimmy Dixon were killed outside the finance building in Window Rock.
Five months later the Council wrote 2 N.N.C. §§ 223–225: advertise the contract, take bids, cap change orders at twenty percent, file it, and let the people see it. In the same resolution they ordered that the law be codified immediately.
The law behind this guide
A · read in the Navajo Nation Code Annotated unless marked otherwise
- 2 N.N.C. §§ 3744–3784 — the Office of Ethics & Rules. Including § 3749 (contracts and bid requirements), § 3767 (retaliation prohibited, since 1988), § 3777 (special prosecutors), § 3780 (sanctions including removal).
- 12 N.N.C. §§ 1–9 — the Auditor General, established under the Navajo Nation Council. § 5: every program shall hand over its books. § 9: the Controller withholds ten percent.
- 12 N.N.C. § 360 — an aggrieved bidder may protest, within fourteen days.
What we found
The office that audits the Council serves at the Council’s pleasure — and reportedly cannot hire investigators.
How we’ll know it worked
When someone answers: when was § 9’s ten-percent sanction last applied?