Word: gao
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...government hands, surfaced more easily than most. Lawrence Knutson, one of A.P.'s regional Washington desk hands, got a tip from a friend and turned to the team for help in checking it out. Team Member Gaylord Shaw phoned his sources at the Government Accounting Office, learned that GAO was already investigating the matter but had not revealed its findings. Shaw and Knutson secured a copy of the GAO report from Senator William Proxmire and broke the story...
According to Senator Proxmire, however, the Defense Department acts "as if the law is something that they can take or leave, and decided to leave it." He's probably right. A GAO survey of 242 firms conducted from April 1965 to June 1966 found only 20 in full compliance. The reason is the Defense Department had never sent the correct forms requesting the cost information. They were gathering dust in a warehouse...
...Proxmire, also learned that the price estimates the DOD had been accepting with no proof were made without reuquiring the contractors to establish formal cost estimating systems. The DOD's own auditors have pleaded for 10 years to put an end to such guesswork. Contractors ignored them until the GAO started putting on the heat early last year...
...abysmal failure to implement the "Truth in Negotiations Law" causes the greatest runoff in defense funds. From minimal spot-checking over a ten-year period, the GAO has turned up some $130 million in overcharges to the government. Senator Proxmire attributes "billions of dollars" to this failure. The absence of many Defense cost records and the shoddiness of others makes it impossible to calculate the exact amount of wastage, but every indication points toward a multi-billion dollar...
Incredibly sloppy bookkeeping and lackadaisical enforcement of regulations are solidly entrenched at the Defense Department. The GAO revelations offered a glimpse of the vast waste at the DOD, but only more prolonged and intense publicity can drive off the behemoth...