DynCorp Accused of Overcharging for Army Contract Work

[tekisui]

Source: Star-Telegram/Bloomberg

DynCorp International, one of the Army’s largest contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, overcharged for its services, the Defense Department’s head auditor said Tuesday.

Flaws in three DynCorp business systems "resulted in billings that significantly exceed allowable amounts," April Stephenson, director of the Defense Contract Audit Agency, told a congressionally mandated commission on war contracting.

This year, the agency sampled 29 DynCorp vouchers, found flaws in 15 and rejected $8.7 million in claims, or about 42 percent of the costs billed, Stephenson said.

The rejected vouchers included three billings from a current job to provide logistics services in Kuwait, she said.

DynCorp won the job last year from KBR in part because its cost proposal was less. Yet "DynCorp billed labor rates and fringe" benefit costs that "were significantly higher than those proposed" during the competition, she said.

Stephenson said the agency found deficiencies with many contractor systems used to bill the Pentagon.

Through June, the agency had audited over 200 business systems and more than half the audits "cited deficiencies," she said.

Stephenson testified as the Wartime Contracting Commission, which Congress established last year, opened two days of hearings on problems the military is having with defense contractor bids and cost estimates — problems blamed in part on computer systems that generate the figures.

more: http://www.star-telegram.com/business/story/1532824.html

[nc4bo]

1. Not surprised at all. Iraq was/is a HUGE money pit for our tax dollars

and a gold mine for companies like KBR and DynCorp.

I'm surprised there hasn't been any evidence of kickbacks.