Review of Pricing of Silver Sold Under the Foreign Military Sales Program

Highlights

GAO was asked to review the Department of Defense's (DOD) pricing of items containing precious metals sold to foreign customers in the foreign military sales program.

Recommendations

Recommendations for Executive Action

Agency Affected	Recommendation	Status
Department of Defense	The Secretary of Defense should establish policies and procedures to identify items with Government-furnished silver sold to foreign countries.	Closed – Implemented When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Department of Defense	The Secretary of Defense should require that the market value of silver be used in pricing such items.	Closed – Implemented When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Department of Defense	The Secretary of Defense should direct responsible organizations to make a reasonable effort to recover undercharges on foreign sales resulting from nonrecovery of the replacement cost or market value of silver.	Closed – Implemented When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Department of Defense	The Secretary of Defense should seek authority from Congress and the Office of Management and Budget to exempt foreign military sales administrative positions from personnel ceilings. In seeking the exemption, the Secretary should provide data on validated administrative staffing needs, the cost of which would be reimbursed by foreign governments.	Closed – Not Implemented DOD disagreed with GAO in exempting just foreign military sales personnel from personnel ceilings. It stated that the exemption would reduce overall flexibility in the distribution of resources and could imply that exempted programs were of more importance than other programs.

Full Report

Full Report (28 pages)

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Topics

Government Operations

Accounting systemsCost analysisForeign military salesMonitoringPrecious metalsReimbursements to governmentMilitary forcesForeign governmentsForeign salesLogistics