Arms Exports

Licensing Reviews for Exporting Military Items Can Be Improved Gao ID: NSIAD-87-211 September 9, 1987

In response to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Department of State's Office of Munition Control's (OMC) arms export licensing activities and procedures and identified actions OMC took to cope with its increased work load.

GAO found that OMC: (1) approved about 90 percent of the license applications it acted on; (2) acted on 80 percent in less than a month; and (3) did not routinely check export license application data for accuracy or veracity. GAO also found that OMC has: (1) insufficient facilities and automated capabilities to store and retrieve historical data which would be useful in license application reviews; and (2) inadequate systems and procedures to ensure compliance with some administrative and reporting requirements.

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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