The top financial managers at Pentagon this week assured senators that the nearly $1 billion audit now underway at the Defense department will be worth the price.
Defense Undersecretary and Comptroller David Norquist—under questioning by Senate Budget Committee members seeking efficiencies and defense budget reforms—said the price of $367 million in contract audit costs just in fiscal 2018 is about 1/30th of 1 percent of the Pentagon’s budget. That is “less than what Fortune 100 companies such as General Electric, Proctor & Gamble and International Business Machines Corp. pay their auditors,” he said.
“I anticipate the audit process will uncover many places where our controls or processes are broken,” he told the committee. “There will be unpleasant surprises. Some of these problems may also prove frustratingly difficult to fix. But the alternative is to operate in ignorance of the challenge and miss the opportunity to reform.”
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