WASHINGTON -- The Navy has paid some $640 each for toilet seats, which Sen. William Cohen, R-Maine, said 'gives new meaning to the word 'throne.''
A Pentagon spokesman said the Defense Department doesn't know how much the toilet parts should cost, 'but we obviously feel this is too much.'
The Navy calls the product 'toilet cover assembly.'
Cohen said the $640 price tag for the toilet seats 'gives new meaning to the word 'throne.'' Sen. William Roth, R-Del., said, 'What I don't understand about this procurement is why we have an aircraft manufacturer making toilet covers.'
Roth added, 'Would we ask a toilet company to build a C-5?'
The Washington Post said Lockheed-California Co. recently concluded after a review that it was only modestly overcharging for the seats.
Lockheed makes the plastic and fiberglass cases for the toilets on P3 Orion submarine-hunting planes, the newspaper said. The firm said the housing should cost $554.78 not the $640.09 it had charged, the newspaper reported.
It said Lockheed recently refunded the Navy $4,606.74.
Jim Ragsdale, a Lockheed spokesman, told the Post the price reflects the fact that the Navy orders only a few of the parts at a time - 54 in 1984.
'If the Navy had needed 54,000 of them, I'm sure the price ... would have been substantially less,' Ragsdale said.
