Army Transportation

Alleged Overcharges on Rail Shipments to and From Ft. Irwin, California Gao ID: NSIAD-88-174 May 13, 1988

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed: (1) a former U.S. Army National Training Center (NTC) employee's allegations that rail carriers frequently overcharged NTC for equipment transportation; (2) a related U.S. Army Forces Command audit; and (3) related General Services Administration (GSA) transportation audits.

GAO found that: (1) rail carriers overcharged NTC by over $3 million; (2) rail carriers' improper application of the negotiated rates in their transportation bills accounted for $1.7 million of the overcharges; and (3) military transportation offices' improper preparation of government bills of lading (GBL) accounted for about $1.3 million of the overcharges. GAO also found that: (1) the Army's actions to correct overcharge problems included auditing carriers' bills before paying them, issuing detailed written instructions on GBL preparation, and adopting new internal control procedures; (2) GSA does not have ready access to all the information it needs to conduct effective preaudits; and (3) the Army has not issued a written standard operating procedure for its new internal controls.

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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