Improved Oversight, but No Invoice Reviews and Potential Antideficiency Act Violation May Have Occurred on the Kuwait Observer Controller Team Task Orders.

摘要

This is the third in a series of audits on the Warfighter Field Operations and Customer Support contract. We determined whether the U.S. Army Program Executive Office for Simulation, Training, and Instrumentation (PEO STRI) obtained fair and reasonable prices and appropriately developed surveillance and oversight processes and procedures for the Kuwait Observer Controller Team (KOCT) task orders, valued at $195.2 million. On the KOCT task orders, PEO STRI contracting personnel negotiated fair and reasonable prices for goods and services and generally developed appropriate contractor surveillance and oversight processes and procedures. However, PEO STRI contracting and oversight personnel did not review contractor interim invoices, totaling $192.7 million, on the KOCT task orders because the contracting officer used a quality assurance surveillance plan (QASP) that did not include procedures for reviewing contractor invoices. Additionally, at the time of our review, Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA) auditors had not yet audited the costs claimed on the interim invoices because DCAA had not performed an incurred cost audit of the contractor since 2005. As a result, PEO STRI paid approximately $70,000 in questioned direct travel costs and may be paying for other unreasonable and unallowable supplies and services on the KOCT task orders. Further, the PEO STRI contracting officer potentially violated the Antideficiency Act by obligating Iraq Security Forces funds on the KOCT task order. This occurred because the PEO STRI contracting officer did not verify the purpose of the funding before obligating those funds to the task order.