Maneuver Damage

DOD Needs to Strengthen U.S. Verification of Claims in Germany Gao ID: NSIAD-88-191 August 9, 1988

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Department of Defense's procedures for processing maneuver damage claims stemming from the U.S. Army, Europe's (USAREUR) military training maneuvers in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG).

GAO found that the U.S. Army Claims Service, Europe (USACSEUR): (1) continues to pay virtually all claims without verifying whether U.S. forces caused the damage or that damage occurred; (2) uses Master Maneuver Damage Reports to verify damage, although the data only list a portion of the damages actually claimed; (3) estimated that it could save up to $10 million a year if it routinely used on-site inspections to verify claims; (4) cited lack of adequate resources as the reason for rarely performing on-site inspections of damage; (5) recently tested the feasibility of using Army Corps of Engineers personnel to verify road damage claims; (6) did not maintain adequate records of the inspections it performed; and (7) plans to take several actions to strengthen U.S. verification, including making damage reports more useful for verification purposes and making more personnel available to physically verify claims.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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