The Government Accountability Office has released a report of its findings on the U.S. Air Force‘s practices on awarding and reporting undefinitized contract actions to the Defense Department‘s Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy office.Timothy DiNapoli, director of acquisition and sourcing management at GAO, said Monday in a report to the Senate and House panels on defense appropriations that stronger oversight on UCAs is needed to ensure that they meet the established definitization time frames.
DoD components are also required to report UCAs with a value of more than $5 million in a semiannual report to DPAP to get an understanding of the department’s overall use of UCAs, the GAO report says.
According to DiNapoli, the report is the result of a performance audit GAO conducted from February to May on the patterns and reasons in the Air Force’s use of UCAs and the extent to which the service complied with UCA policies.
GAO found that the Air Force obligated $14 billion on non-Foreign Military Sales UCAs from fiscal year 2010 to fiscal year 2014, with nearly half from the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center.
The service said it uses UCAs to address urgent needs and has followed the UCA approval process, DiNapoli writes.
He adds that the Air Force did not meet definitization time frames for the 10 sample AFLCMC UCAs reviewed and needs to include all UCAs, including those with long lead times, in its semiannual report.
DiNapoli reports that the service’s deputy assistant secretary for contracting issued a memo in April that mandates the complete reporting of UCAs.
