The Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a new report of interest to the life cycle logistics and systems engineering communities on May 6m 2020 entitled “GAO-29-386 Foreign Military Sales: DOD Should Further Strengthen Financial Oversight of Transportation Fees”.

According to the GAO, “Foreign partners buy billions of dollars of defense items and services annually through the U.S. Foreign Military Sales program. DOD collects a transportation fee from buyers to cover shipping costs and pay shipping expenses. DOD’s financial oversight is supposed to ensure that money goes in and out of the transportation accounts appropriately. However, DOD’s oversight processes do not ensure that annual reviews are routinely overseen, which increases the risk that fees collected may be inaccurate (and) shipping expenses paid are accurate and allowable.

The GAO went on to provide five recommended improvements to DOD’s financial oversight of the transportation accounts