WASHINGTON, Dec. 28 (UPI) -- The U.S. Army lost as much as $68 million worth of items last year that went astray when sent for repairs, according to government auditors.
The Government Accountability Office, investigative arm of the U.S. Congress, said Wednesday that it had examined electronic data about repair shipments from Army inventory control systems and surveyed contractors who were supposedly the recipients of a random sampling of items where there was no documentation of its receipt.
Auditors found more than 4,500 thousand shipments worth over $621 million in which the Army inventory control systems had no record of delivery. This included nearly 100 shipments of classified technology, comprising a total of 823 items.
The survey results "showed that repair contractors could confirm receipt of most, but not all, of the (undocumented) shipments," the GAO told lawmakers in a letter laying out the findings.
Contractors were able to account for all the shipments of classified technology, the letter said.
Investigators believe that about 15 percent of those unclassified, undocumented items were never received, and "estimated that these lost or unaccounted for shipments have a value of approximately $68 million."
The GAO concluded that the Defense Department needed to tighten its procedures for documenting repair shipments, and the department concurred.
