Pentagon fails to account for over $2.1 trillion in assets
The Pentagon has failed again to pass a financial audit, with only seven out of the 27 defense agencies receiving a passing A grade. The US Department of defense succeeded to account for only 39 % of its $3.5 trillion in assets meaning that 61 % or $2.1 trillion remain unaccounted for.
The DoD chief financial officer Mike McCord told reporters that they failed again to get an A, the Cradle magazine reported. The Pentagon is the only US government agency to have never passed an audit. This shows the DoD’s persistent lack of internal financial control, its poor budget estimations and overspending.
The F-35 program, for instance, has exceeded its original budget by $165 billion. The Pentagon plans to buy more than 2,400 F-35s for the Air Force, Marines, and Navy. The estimated cost for procuring and operating these planes – $1.7 trillion – would make it the Pentagon’s most expensive weapons project ever, the Cradle magazine has calculated. A 2021 Pentagon assessment of the F-35 program found 800 unresolved defects in the aircraft.
While the Pentagon estimates the average cost of its shipbuilding initiative to be $27 billion per year between 2023 and 2052, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) contends this, claiming that the average annual cost of the plan will be over $31 billion (exceeded by $4 billion). For 30 years this will exceed the planned budget by $120 billion.
These practices have boosted the profits of US arms makers like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman, with major gains made despite the challenges posed by inflation and supply chain issues caused by the pandemic, the magazine claims.
The US government is expected to reach a $1 trillion defense budget by 2027 since the White House has already increased the Pentagon budget to $773 billion for the next fiscal year. The money is needed for the Pentagon to replenish the US military stockpiles which, according to US media reports, have been depleted in recent months due to the military aid provided to Ukraine.
https://militarymonitoring.com/pentagon-fails-to-account-for-over-2-1-trillion-in-assets/
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