Pentagon's accounting shambles may cost an additional $1 billion

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.iwatchnews.org/2011/10/13/7063/pentagons-accounting-shambles-may-cost-additional-1-billion

The Pentagon, which previously warned that reliable military spending figures could not be produced until 2017, has discovered that financial ledgers are in worse shape than expected and it may need to spend a billion dollars more to make DOD’s financial accounting credible, according to defense officials and congressional sources.

Experts say the Pentagon’s accounting has never been reliable. A lengthy effort by the military services to implement new financial systems at a cost so far of more than $6 billion has itself been plagued by overruns and delays, senior defense officials say. The Government Accountability Office said in a report last month that although the services can now fully track incoming appropriations, they still cannot demonstrate their funds are being spent as they should.

The issue of poor bookkeeping has taken on particular political salience as lawmakers more closely scrutinize the $671 billion annual military budget for waste, fraud and abuse amid soaring federal deficits. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, responding in part to bipartisan pressures, announced Tuesday that DOD does not intend to wait six more years — as agreed in 2009 — to put in place long-awaited accounting reforms that advocates say will increase efficiencies and reduce mismanagement.

“The ability to audit our books ought to be something we do on a faster track, and we will,” Panetta said in a speech at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington. Government officials said Panetta will today announce a new deadline of 2014, but that the details of how the new target date is to be met will not be known for another 60 days.

More at the link --

[arcane1]

1. $6 billion and counting to tell us how wasteful their spending is

I suppose that says it all right there.

[Supersedeas]

2. Do you suppose the average Joe can have until 2017 to get his documentation together

when the auditors come knowing.

Average Joe goes to jail for that sort of thing.

[City Lights]

3. ARGH!

Cut off their supply of money, pronto. Time for them to sell candy bars, cookie dough, popcorn and wrapping paper. Let the generals to door-to-door to raise funds for their scam.

:puke:

:nuke:

:argh:

Rec'd.

[msongs]

4. and how many incompetents will be fired for this? like, none nt