A story in Public Finance International reports that the US Government Accountability Office found that federal government departments are not spending their procurement dollars strategically:
US federal government departments are not making the most of their buying power and need to emulate the more strategic approach to purchasing employed by the private sector, auditors have concluded. The Government Accountability Office reviewed spending patterns in the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Energy, and Veterans Affairs. Between them, these departments account for 80% of the $537bn spent by the federal government on procurement. However, the GAO found that only around 5% of this spend ($25.8bn) was used strategically in the 2011 fiscal year.
