Citizens Against Government Waste Commends the Pentagon for Finally Beginning its Audit

By Citizens Against Government Waste

Washington, D.C. - December 9, 2017 - (The Ponder News) -- Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) President Tom Schatz released a statement applauding the Department of Defense (DOD) for announcing the start of its long-delayed first audit:

“Taxpayers should be encouraged that DOD has finally begun the necessary process of auditing its gargantuan bureaucracy. The Pentagon has done an exemplary job of protecting our national security, but a very poor job of keeping track of how defense dollars are spent.

“The Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990 (CFO Act) required audits to be performed and accurate financial statements disclosed for every federal department. CAGW was instrumental in the enactment of this legislation.

“That means DOD has failed to perform an essential accounting function for the past 27 years, while every other agency required to provide an audit under the CFO Act has done so. Since the Pentagon is the largest federal department, the lack of transparency and accountability has made this delay even worse.

“Determining how the taxpayers’ money is being used at the Pentagon should not be difficult. On December 5, 2016, The Washington Post reported that the department had buried an internal study that found $125 billion in administrative waste. The Government Accountability Office has regularly found DOD programs at ‘high risk’ of waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement.

“While the Pentagon has previously announced its intent to produce an audit, we fully expect that this time it will carry out that commitment with the meticulous scrutiny that taxpayers expect, and we look forward to analyzing the findings when they are released.”

Citizens Against Government Waste is the nation's largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.