Pentagon Watchdog Says Ukraine Aid Oversight Hindered By Bad Record-Keeping

The Pentagon’s watchdog warned Tuesday that some of the Defense Department’s practices for tracking the money being spent on Ukraine is hindering oversight efforts, Defense One reported.

The Pentagon’s Inspector General’s office released a report on the $6.5 billion that was given to the department as part of the $13.6 billion Ukraine aid bill that was signed by President Biden in March. The $6.5 billion was authorized to cover the cost of sending weapons to Ukraine and additional troop deployments in Eastern Europe.

The IG report reads: “As the DoD is building processes and procedures to ensure the transparency of the reporting for the Ukraine supplemental funds, we identified multiple areas of concern that, if not adequately addressed, could reduce the traceability of Ukraine supplemental funds and the transparency in the DoD’s reporting.”

The Pentagon is supposed to use a system for recording called Advancing Analytics or Advana. But the IG report said the Pentagon frequently used reporting systems that couldn’t feed into Advana and used another method that requires sharing fewer details to track transactions, known as journal vouchers.

“The use of summary journal vouchers is a concern because journal vouchers have the potential to limit the transparency of the funds, particularly if the summary journal vouchers do not trace back to the supporting transactions details,” the report says.

The Pentagon has come under pressure from some members of Congress over the lack of oversight for the billions of dollars in weapons and other aid that is being shipped to Ukraine. In response, Pentagon IG Sean O’Donnell told lawmakers that he formed a joint working group with the State Department and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to work on oversight for the Ukraine aid.

The $40 Billion Ukraine aid bill Biden signed in May is separate from the funds that the IG report covered. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) tried to amend the bill so it would create a special inspector general for Ukraine aid, similar to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, but the effort failed.