Auditors rip Army over record-keeping

The Chicago Sun-Times reports:

Because of sloppy record-keeping, the Army cannot confirm that $68 million worth of shipped parts and tools ever made it into the hands of repair contractors, congressional auditors say.

The Government Accountability Office, the auditing arm of Congress, released a report Wednesday showing that the Army in 2004 failed to consistently record shipment receipts to such contractors. That is one of many issues, the GAO says, that leads to weak inventory oversight.

The report noted that Defense Department policy requires each service to confirm the receipt of all assets shipped to contractors. But, the report said, ''the Army is not consistently recording shipment receipts in its inventory management systems.''

The Army is the third military branch to be admonished for faulty oversight. In earlier audits, the GAO found similar oversight problems with the Navy's and Air Force's parts and tool shipments.

Eat your heart out Enron.The problem will all government spending(even in a democracy) is there is no real accountability.