Posted on 10/05/2009 8:48:57 AM PDT by jazusamo
Some members of Congress are so disturbed by failures and malfeasance described in a recent government report that they are considering removing the agency that audits hundreds of billions of dollars in Defense Department contracts from Pentagon supervision.
One legislator said he felt physically sickened by the report.
The lawmakers were reacting to findings by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, about the Defense Contract Auditing Agency (DCAA).
The agency, which last year was responsible for ensuring that taxpayers got good value for more than a half-trillion dollars in defense contracts, revised audits to curry favor with contractors, promoted a supervisor responsible for such revisions to a top position and rushed through other audits out of fear that the work would be outsourced if employees took too much time, the GAO said.
"Unbelievable problems at Def Contrctng Agncy [sic]," Sen. Claire McCaskill, Missouri Democrat, wrote on her Twitter account just before a recent hearing on the report. "Top of my head is about to pop off."
"I read a summary of the GAO report last night and quite frankly got sick," said Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, adding that he would not use all his allotted time for questions because he was "a little bit too upset to go where I really want to go."
"Each and every audit that GAO reviewed for this report was out of compliance with auditing standards," said Sen. Joe Lieberman, Connecticut independent and chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. The DCAA "has a unique role," as a steward of taxpayer dollars, and consequently "needs to have independence. It needs to stand up to pressures from both agencies and contractors," he said. "Perhaps it's time for us to consider separating DCAA from the Department of Defense and ...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Meanwhile Rangel, Pelosi, Reid and Murtha continue to suck up tax dollars.
Audit HUD and all the other real waste generators.
Their main contribution, in being government employees, is that they do pay taxes, as opposed to their unemployed brethren on Uncle Sam's welfare roles.
Wouldn’t surprise me if some are involved in this, especially Fat Jack Murtha.
And some elected reps.
Funny the way that they are making it sound like DCAA is supposed to be saving the govt money because they have to be the watchdog for those evil defense contractors...
And now for how it really works:
Govt awards $1b contract to company A to perform x, y and z - per contract. Company A delivers and gets paid 90% of the contract until audit completed by DCAA. DCAA’s main job is to find ways to keep as much of that 10% as they possibly can. DCAA auditors are generally the most incompetent accountants that I have ever had to work with in my career - and that includes the ones from India.
It’s not about efficiencies, fiscal responsibility or fiduciary duty with these guys, it’s about getting their personal cut of the action; Reed, Pelosi and Murtha are not complaining! While soldiers die for their pay-for-play.
Though I know nothing about it that sounds like it’s right on the money.
The National Procurement Fraud Task Force was created on October 10, 2006, to promote the prevention, early detection and prosecution of procurement fraud. In announcing the formation of the Task Force, former Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty explained, “Procurement fraud cheats American taxpayers and harms the government’s efforts to obtain the goods and services needed for its mission. At a time of heightened concern for our nation’s security, every tax dollar is precious.”
The Task Force is chaired by the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division, and includes the FBI, the Department of Justice Inspector General and other federal Inspectors General, defense investigative agencies, federal prosecutors from United States Attorneys offices across the country, as well as the Criminal, Civil, Antitrust and Tax Divisions of the Department of Justice. The Task Force’s emphasis will be to increase civil and criminal enforcement where it can have the greatest effect, including defective pricing, product substitution, misuse of classified and procurement sensitive information, false claims, grant fraud, labor mischarging, fraud involving foreign military sales, ethics and conflict of interest violations, and public corruption associated with procurement fraud. The Task Force also will focus on maximizing information sharing and take significant leadership in addressing issues such as grant fraud, relations with the private sector, training and legislation. As former Assistant Attorney General Fisher has stated, “The public needs to have faith in the integrity of the procurement system and know that anyone who is cheating the system will be held accountable.”
http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/npftf/
Investigative Resources
Among others, the federal agencies that will participate in the Task Force include the
FBI, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction and the OIGs associated with DoD,
Central Intelligence Agency, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, GSA, Department
of Housing and Urban Development, Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security,
Department of Energy, Department of Veterans Affairs, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Small
Business Administration, Social Security Administration, U.S. Postal Service, Office of the
Director of National Intelligence, National Reconnaissance Office, Department of State,
Department of Transportation, Department of Treasury, Department of Interior, and Department
of Agriculture. In addition, given the overwhelming size of the defense slice of the procurement
pie, all defense-related investigative agencies — Defense Criminal Investigative Service, Naval
Criminal Investigative Service, Army-CID, and the Air Force Office of Special Investigations —
will be full participants
http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/npftf/pr/speeches/2006/oct/10-10-06npftfinitiative.pdf
Pentagon officials told the hearing that the GAO investigation examined audits conducted years ago and that a series of remedial measures already had been implemented, including a new oversight committee of all the service comptrollers.
So this was really about trotting out some old issue, to take heat off Congress Critters who are about to wasting billions of dollars on a health care debacle?
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