WASHINGTON (Sputnik) – The US Department of Defense is wasting money the way it buys and invests in weapons development, a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report stated.
"The Department of Defense (DOD) is not effectively using portfolio management to optimize its weapon system investments, as evidenced by affordability challenges in areas such as shipbuilding and potential duplication among some of its programs," the report, issued on Thursday, said.
The GAO observed that the DOD system suffered from fragmented governance, lack of sustained leadership and policy and a perceived lack of decision-making authority.
"Best practices recommend assessing investments collectively from an enterprise-wide perspective and integrating requirements, acquisition, and budget information, but several factors inhibit DOD's ability to do so," it said.
The GAO also noted that the DOD stopped implementing its portfolio management efforts and policy, in part due to changes in leadership.
"DOD's policy is also dated, does not fully reflect best practices, and does not identify an office with sufficient authority to implement it," the report said.
The Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Joint Staff committees are not consistently conducting portfolio reviews or collaborating to integrate key information, the GAO warned.
"As a result, DOD may be missing opportunities to better leverage its resources and identify investment priorities that best reflect DOD-wide needs," it said.
Also, the Joint Staff lacks a database that pulls together current information to help manage its portfolios and has to rely on repeated data calls, which are inefficient and time consuming, the report stated.
DOD's weapon system acquisition programs have a total estimated acquisition cost of over $1.4 trillion, but the department’s planned actions will not fully address the issues GAO identified, it concluded.
The US Government Accountability Office is an independent, nonpartisan agency that works for Congress and investigates how the federal government spends the taxpayers’ money.
