DOD Inspector General Finds $900 Million Spare Part Stockpile

Tweet

April 4, 2013

The Army bought nearly $900 million worth of spare parts for the Stryker armored fighting vehicle even as the parts became obsolete or unnecessary, according to a report by the Defense Department Office of Inspector General.

An article in the Tacoma Wash., News Tribune described the stockpile:

Take, for instance, the $57 million worth of obsolete infrared equipment the Army has not installed in Strykers since 2007. It lingered at the Stryker warehouse until the Inspector General called attention to it last year.

Or, the 9,179 small replacement gears called pinions the Army bought as a temporary fix for a Stryker suspension problem that surfaced between 2007 and 2009. The Army took care of the root malfunction in 2010, but kept buying pinions.

It needed only 15 of the gears. The 9,164 extra pinions are worth $572,000, the Inspector General reported.

The spare parts piled up in a warehouse outside Auburn Wash., where neither the contractor nor the Army kept track of the inventory.

Read more about the extra parts, and what will be done with them, in The News Tribune.

Image from Flickr user U.S. Army Korea (Historical Image Archive).

Topics: National Security

Related Content: Defense, DOD Oversight, Wasteful Defense Spending

Authors: Andre Francisco

Project On Government Oversight (POGO)

1100 G Street, NW, Suite 500    Washington, DC 20005
Phone: (202) 347-1122     Fax: (202) 347-1116     Email: info@pogo.org

POGO is a 501(c)(3) organization. All donations are tax-deductible.

Founded in 1981, the Project On Government Oversight is a nonpartisan independent watchdog that champions good government reforms. POGO’s investigations into corruption, misconduct, and conflicts of interest achieve a more effective, accountable, open, and ethical federal government.