The Pentagon was warned more than a year ago that thousands of transactions were taking place at strip clubs and casinos using government issued credit cards intended for official travel.
But a new report from the Department of Defense Inspector General finds after those problems were made public, “DOD management did not take action to eliminate additional misuse” and “the travel card program remained vulnerable to continued misuse.”
From July 1, 2013, through June 30, 2014, DOD cardholders had 4,437 transactions totaling $952,258, where they likely used their travel cards at casinos for personal use and had 900 additional transactions for $96,576 at adult entertainment establishments.
The follow up report found “travel card officials did not take appropriate action when notified by the DOD OIG, during the previous audit, that cardholders had potentially misused their travel card.”
“What the Pentagon is doing is essentially re-enforcing bad behavior, by not taking action against those who shouldn’t be doing these things,” said Peter Sepp, President of the National Taxpayers Alliance.
The Pentagon agreed to make a long list of changes by the end of the year. But in its response to the inspector general noted that this is a small part of the total travel card budget.
“The personal use of the Government Travel Charge Card identified in the audit amounted to less than 0.04 percent of the travel card spent,” said A.M. Kurta, deputy assistant secretary of the Department of Defense.
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