Our Pentagon at work spending our tax money..............
Over the last 6 years a parts supply company in South Carolina billed and collected approximately $20.5 million from the Pentagon. At first glance this in and of itself does not sound like an unreasonable price to pay. After all what could be more important than the defense of our nation? However upon closer examination, you know after six years of being over billed, someone noticed that the SC company billed $998,798 for sending two 19-cent washers to a military base in Texas. Now I know that the great state of Texas is BIG but I'm pretty sure it shouldn't cost that much to ship the two washers. After a careful review it was determined this was not just a typo or simple mistake by the SC company; there was a pattern of over billing.
The Pentagon noted, in their defense, that the SC company exploited a "flaw" in an automated Defense Department purchasing system. Apparently bills labeled "priority" for shipping items to combat areas or military bases were generally paid "automatically".
I don't know about you but several questions and thoughts come to mind immediately.
1. Seriously, I want to know the name of the person who approved this DOD purchasing system that would allow an "automatic" payment of a bill for $998,798 simply because the bill was labeled "priority". If the use of a single word opens the DOD's checkbook couldn't they have at least made it a bit more difficult to spell? I dunno, I'm just spit balling here, but how about supercalifragilisticexpialidocious? I'm just sayin.....
2. I guess the reason the DOD can't send much needed body armor to our troops "automatically" is because they didn't use the magic word......."priority". Doh!
3. I think a just punishment, for the person who signed off on the DOD purchasing system, would be to send them to Iraq so they could learn the true meaning of a "priority" need. I wonder how long it would take him/her to get their body armor? Darn it! They know the magic word.....grrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
4. This does beg the question of how many other "magic" words there are within our government's payment systems. I hate to even think about it. Then again, maybe I will for a moment. I'm wondering if other departments are more creative? Oh the possibilities.
5. Would any of us have our jobs, if we were so careless about the main function of our position? I'm just a simple girl but I'm thinking that the main function of the purchasing department is to procure goods and services needed for the defense of this nation at an agreed upon price. I'm also thinking that the purchasing agent job is to ensure the goods are received and the appropriate supplier paid in a timely fashion. What else are the DOD purchasing agents doing, that requires so much of their time, that they cannot review a million dollar bill? I'd like to see their job description and for that matter the one for their boss. Obviously this is a prevalent and systematic issue. I'm thinking this is a 6-Sigma dream project. Repeat after me Pentagon dudes.....DMAIC (I'll even help you. It's pronounced Duh-May-Ick) In this case heavy emphasis on the DUH and ICK!
6. The owners of the SC company are being prosecuted and rightfully so. However I wonder why no one is talking about the gross negligence of the person(s) who enabled this despicable act to happen? Six years of over billing, please! So basically no one audited the supplier's billing in six years. How does anyone, think this is an appropriate way to handle money? Do these same people go home and just write checks without regard to the amount invoiced? These same people, I'm sure, will spend hours on hold with customer service to argue a 10-cent discrepancy. Where has our work ethic gone? Why isn't it important to us to do an honest day's work because it is the right thing to do? Why don't we take pride in a job well done? (sigh)
We hear about these stories of greed and negligence on a frequent basis. Many of us shake our heads and are resigned to the fact that things will never change. We forget about it and move on with our daily lives. Some of us are appalled and will retell this story at work, to our family, our friends but the tale will always end with some vague notion of what we would to do correct the situation; that however is where it ends. A precious handful of us may write our congressman or pick up the phone and call him/her. Unfortunately I think generally we all miss the boat. Our willingness to accept this incompetence is a reflection of who we are as a nation; dysfunctional. Collectively we made 68 million calls to vote for our favorite American Idol but how many of us can honestly say we have ever picked up the phone to call our congressman? I believe we get the government we deserve. We are not innocent bystanders. We are complicit and neglectful. We have forgotten that our active participation is our duty. We can't complain about negligence on their behalf, if we ourselves are negligent.
Bottom line, as I see it, is that we are what we allow to happen.
