WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The US Department of Veterans Administration (VA) has lost track of $600 million to $900 million in contracting arrangements it made with other US government agencies, a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report said.
“GAO… found that VA obligated about $1.7 billion to other government agencies [from 2012 through 2014],” the report, issued on Thursday, said.
However, GAO's analysis of data from VA's accounting system found that the total amount transferred to other agencies over this period was between $2.3 billion and $2.6 billion, “a difference of $600 million to $900 million for the same period.”
The GAO found that VA's contract management system data was “incomplete due to several shortcomings,” the report said.
One major shortcoming investigators discovered was that no direct link exists between the VA’s contract management system and its accounting system.
“Thus, actions can be initiated directly in the accounting system without being recorded in the contract management system,” the report pointed out.
Nearly half of the 21 interagency agreements GAO reviewed were missing items such as documentation of VA's reasons for using an interagency agreement instead of another procurement approach, it added.
The US Government Accountability Office is an independent, nonpartisan agency that works for Congress and investigates how the federal government spends taxpayer dollars.
