The Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics has begun issuing memos to acquisition personnel emphasizing ethical conduct and attempting to step up ethics training — and asked the military services to assess their acquisition functions, the report said.
It said AT-and-L completed an analysis of those self-assessments in March and proposed recommendations to address weaknesses in the oversight, source selection, and contract award processes to improve the integrity of DoD acquisition decisions.
Two military services established a procurement fraud-working group for acquisition personnel to discuss ways to address contracting fraud, and the group has been sharing information and communicating, according to GAO.
It said that since September 2004, DoD has issued several policy memos to improve the oversight of interagency contracts and time and materials contracts.
The military services have also created new offices to focus audit and investigative efforts on areas of vulnerability to promoting general awareness about fraud through training and newsletters, GAO said.
It said however that it’s too soon to tell what impact these efforts will have on curbing fraud, waste and abuse in defense contracting.
