The Department of Defense (DOD) has neglected to address its inability to keep track of at least $220 billion in equipment provided to government contractors, according to a Tuesday report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
Auditors first reported the Pentagon’s failure to account for government-owned equipment or material offered up for use to contracting agencies, also called government furnished property, in 2001, according to the report. DOD has made little improvement since then, increasing the risk that the Pentagon could accidentally overlook errors in the books.
“This long-standing issue affects the accounting and reporting of GFP and is one of the reasons DOD is unable to produce auditable financial statements,” GAO said. Of all the major federal agencies GAO is obligated to review, DOD is the only one unable to receive an opinion on its financial statements. (RELATED: ‘We Couldn’t Do It’: US Plan To Track Weapons To Kyiv Depends On Ukrainian Troops)
The Pentagon failed its fifth audit in a row in November since formally beginning the practice in 2018, DefenseNews reported. Contractors could not prove expenditures for 61% of the Pentagon’s $3.5 trillion in assets; a total of $7.2 trillion in assets and liabilities for 2022 included high-value weapons and equipment, 2.9 million personnel and 643,900 physical assets, according to the outlet, according to Military.com.
Assets include those provided for use to contractors, according to GAO.
“I would not say that we flunked. The process is important for us to do, and it is making us get better. It is not making us get better as fast as we want,” Pentagon Comptroller Mike McCord said, according to DefenseNews.
