Mike Stone

WASHINGTON (Reuters] – On Tuesday, the chief financial officer of the U.S. Pentagon said that the fourth failure in its comprehensive audit reflected problems with systems and accounting. The vast bureaucracy is making “steady progress”, towards a pass grade.

Audits are legally mandatory and have helped improve the Pentagon’s controls. They also help the Department of Defense locate misplaced inventory, which helps to save money.

Around 1,200 auditors evaluated the record-keeping and systems for weapons systems, personnel and property in the world. They visited 278 sites and made 1,069 virtual trips.

This led to 26 independent audits, which comprised the entire exercise.

According to Mike McCord (the Pentagon’s CFO), eight units would receive the same clean opinion from auditors as last year.

McCord stated that the department was making steady progress towards achieving an favorable audit opinion as he revealed the findings of his audit of assets worth $3.2 trillion and liabilities of $3 trillion.

Pentagon said, “As the audits mature & testing expands,” and that they expected findings to grow in complexity and number as successive sweeps might expose greater problems.

It took the U.S. Department of Homeland Security ten years to complete a thorough audit. Pentagon officials claim that the DoD may take as much time, so 2027 could be the date of its next clean audit.

Auditing for situations that needed in-person access was hampered due to travel restrictions by the coronavirus, according the Pentagon. But virtual site visits were effective in the due diligence process.

The audit fees for this year, which totalled $207 million, were almost flat compared to the prior year.