DoD, State and USAID continue to have difficulty tracking the contracts, grants and cooperative agreements they rely on for missions in Iraq and Afghanistan despite the development of a management, oversight and coordination tool.
The agencies designated the "synchronized pre-deployment and operational tracker" – SPOT — as their system in 2010 for tracking statutorily required information on contracts, assistance instruments, and associated personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan.
However, citing early limitations with SPOT, the agencies generally relied on other data sources to prepare their 2011 joint report. Only State used SPOT to prepare the report but even then it was just for contractor personnel numbers, far short of intended system capabilities.
SPOT or not, the agencies’ data had significant limitations overall, many of which were not fully disclosed, according to GAO-11-886.
It said for example, that while the agencies collectively reported $22.7 billion in fiscal 2010 obligations, they underreported the value of Iraq and Afghanistan contracts and assistance instruments by at least $4 billion, the majority of which was for DoD contracts.
In addition, data presented in the joint report on personnel, including those performing security functions, are of limited reliability because of significant over- and under-counting.
The agencies maintain that their ongoing coordination is sufficient to fix data reliability problems but GAO maintains they must develop a plan to address SPOT’s limitations.
