Pentagon Failing To Meet $10Bln Bureaucratic Cost Cutting Goals In Five Year Plan - Report

The US Department of Defense has failed to carry out a five year plan requiring it to save at least $10 billion in the costs of its bureaucratic operations from 2015 through 2019, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a report on Monday.

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 24th September, 2018) The US Department of Defense has failed to carry out a five year plan requiring it to save at least $10 billion in the costs of its bureaucratic operations from 2015 through 2019, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a report on Monday.

"The Department of Defense has not fully met statutory requirements of section 346 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016... [to] implement a plan to achieve not less than $10 billion in cost savings," the report said.

The savings were to come from reducing and reforming headquarters, administrative, and from support activities from fiscal year 2015 through fiscal year 2019, and required the Defense Department to submit progress reports with its fiscal year 2017, 2018 and 2019 budget requests, the GAO explained.

GAO also said that the Defense Department has not fully met the requirement to save $10 billion by fiscal year 2019.

"[The Defense Department] reports that it has identified $9.2 billion of the required $10 billion in cost savings from fiscal year 2015 through fiscal year 2019," the report said.

The Defense Department was required to submit its first progress report when it submitted its fiscal year 2017 budget request in February 2016. However, it did not submit its first required progress report until May 2018, the GAO recalled.