Billion Dollar Contract Slips Under DCAA's Radar

More bad news about the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA). Despite promises that DCAA is improving management, Pratap Chatterjee at Corp Watch reports that DCAA had missed a billion dollar contract for translators for the U.S. military until they were accosted by the Wartime Contracting Commission:

The company’s costs have not been singled out as questionable or unsupported, but the failure of the government agency to oversee taxpayer money is an indicator of widespread problems and staff shortages at this key military agency.

The article also runs through a history—all-too-familiar for POGO blog readers—of DCAA's problems, which started with mismanagement, but now also include a declining number of audits and plummeting returns for taxpayers on those few audits. You can read more about POGO's concerns about the reform efforts at DCAA here.

-- Mandy Smithberger

See also:

• Problems with the DCAA's ad hoc Reform
• Is "Resolving" DCAA Findings the Same Thing As Listening to Them?
• Is DCAA Adopting a More Confrontational Stance With Contractors?
• Target Practice with the DCAA

Comments

[Joe]

Happy with the DCAA that you have created Mr. Hale? Does the $1 billion contract not make your list of high priority audits? While Fitzgerald is making superficial changes and moving people from one location to another on the hopes that DCAA will improve all on its own, billions of dollars go unaudited. Fitzgerald has yet to address the fundamental issues at DCAA and you (Mr. Hale) have yet to adequately fund or support DCAA. How about telling contractors to knock-off the delay tactics during audits. How about assessing the GAGAS level of DCAA audits so that we do not have to spend months auditing price propsoals and spend more time documenting our work than actual audit testing. How about getting with the GAO and IG to reach an agreement of the level of working paper documentation. Want cost efficiencies for Secretary Gates, stop Fitzgerald's mentality of perfect workpapers. There is no such thing as perfect working papers. Wake up and realize that you are partially to blame for this mess. Perhaps you should be reassigned the way that you reassigned the prior Director which was a mistake that I am sure you will never admit. Happy now?

[Dandy]

There is a rumor going around that the new Western Regional Director has placed the Deputy Director on Administrative Leave. Anyone know if that is true? If so, it would be the first substantive disciplinary action taken to date related to the GAO and IG Reports. This action, if it has happened, would be well placed and would be extremely beneficial to morale. The WDRD appeared to be at the center of the most significant problems exposed in the Western Region. The former WRD's only big screw-up was allowing the WDRD pen the response letter. Kind of like asking the fox to watch over the hen house!