GAO said that in the short-term, Congress could provide DCAA with certain legislative protections and authorities similar to those available to IGs, and that in the longer term Congress might want to elevate DCAA to a component agency that reports to the deputy secretary, or establish an independent government-wide contract audit agency.
The chair and ranking members of the committee, Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, called the continued systemic weaknesses at DCAA unacceptable and suggested that the agency might need to be separated from DoD to ensure its independence.
Three years after auditing problems at the agency first came to light, Lieberman said the committee has run out of patience, noting that every audit GAO reviewed failed to meet auditing standards. “That indicates systemic issues within the agency,” he said, adding, “I expect strong leadership from the DoD so that our committee will not be sitting here a year from now discussing the same old problems.”
The committee held a hearing last September on the agency’s Western region and asked GAO to expand its investigation to all of the agency’s 300 offices, which conduct about 30,000 audits a year, covering $501 billion in proposed or claimed contract costs.
Collins expressed frustration and noted a “sense of outrage” surrounding the failure of defense auditors to provide adequate oversight of hundreds of billions of dollars of defense contracts.
