U.S. Senators together with Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Chuck Grassley, R-Ia., this week despatched a letter to the Pentagon asking for an investigation into experiences of alleged worth gouging by protection contractors.
The letter to Protection Secretary Lloyd Austin factors to a CBS Information “60 Minutes” report that mentioned makers of weapons and different tools for the army overcharge the federal authorities.
“Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT), Boeing (NYSE:BA), Raytheon (NYSE:RTX) and TransDigm (NYSE:TDG) are among the many offenders,” the senators wrote, “dramatically overcharging the Division and U.S. taxpayers whereas reaping monumental earnings, seeing their inventory costs soar, and handing out huge government compensation packages.”
Mike Braun, R-Ind., and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., additionally signed the Could 25 letter that calls for an investigation into the CBS report. The lawmakers additionally need an replace on the protection division’s efforts to implement monetary administration and fraud-prevention practices really useful in experiences by the Authorities Accountability Workplace (GAO), a congressional watchdog company.
“The CBS Information report discovered that the DOD would usually negotiate fastened worth contracts offering for personal earnings of 12 to fifteen p.c, just for Pentagon analysts to seek out overcharges that boosted complete earnings to almost 40 p.c or extra,” the senators wrote. “Huge overcharges from protection contractors accounting for a whole bunch of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} have been uncovered within the investigation.”
Lockheed Martin (LMT) responded to In search of Alpha’s request for remark with this assertion: “Lockheed Martin constructively and ethically works with the U.S. authorities to help its nationwide protection, intelligence, and worldwide safety cooperation goals. We negotiate with the federal government in good religion on all our packages to satisfy its mission wants with the perfect and only applied sciences and techniques in compliance with Federal Acquisition Laws and all different relevant legal guidelines.”
In search of Alpha has requested corporations talked about within the letter for remark, and can replace this story as quickly as doable.