Fergie's Tech Blog

DoD Pays Billions For Unnamed Contractors

Michael Fabey writes on AviationWeek:

The Pentagon spent more than $2.7 billion on “miscellaneous items” in 2008 for which the contractor was listed as “not available” — a rare omission for Defense Department documentation — according to an Aerospace DAILY analysis of an independent national database of government contracting data.

The “miscellaneous items” expenditure listing appears to be a catch-all category for Pentagon transactions, according to interviews with defense analysts and a review of Defense Department contracting data provided by the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting (NICAR).

In many cases the transactions also fail to clearly show what the money was spent on. However, defense analysts say the transactions appear to be classified or related to intelligence operations, and the proper congressional overseers have received the names of the contractors and information on the work done.

posted by Fergie @ 5/22/2009 07:44:00 PM