The Government Accountability Office included the Department of Defense’s contract management practices in its high-risk list after finding gaps in its handling of potentially fraudulent vendors.
In a report released Tuesday, GAO found that DOD lacked data analytics tools such as information matching to prevent or detect fraud, despite having a Fraud Reduction Task Force.
The likelihood of fraud is high in DOD’s contracting activity due to the value of its contracts and scope of products and services. Although the agency had established a task force to address this issue, it failed to specify which DOD unit had the primary responsibility of planning, scheduling and implementing data analytics to detect dubious activity.
The government watchdog recommended that DOD review and analyze adjudicated procurement fraud cases and it mobilize its Office of Inspector General for collaboration on developing practices to maximize the use of data analytics to prevent contracting scams.
DOD agreed on some, but not all, of the recommendations.