A recently performed audit discovered Defense Department employees used government issued credit cards to both gamble and pay for “adult entertainment.”
Politico reported Wednesday that a soon-to-be-released audit of “Government Travel Charge Transactions” by the Department of Defense Inspector General says civilian and military employees used the credit cards at casinos and for escort services in both Las Vegas and Atlantic City:
A Pentagon official briefed on some of the findings stressed that the federal government did not necessarily pay the charges; holders of the cards pay their own bills and then submit receipts to be reimbursed for expenses related to their government business.
The official said that the employees may have used the government cards for gambling and escort services in order to shield the charges from spouses.
This audit comes three years after the passage of the “Government Charge Card Abuse Prevention Act,” sponsored by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. The law is designed to provide oversight for government issued charge cards in the cases of shopping, gambling, and other instances.
“I’m interested to see the report and find out more about what’s being done, right and wrong, at the Defense Department to prevent abuse,” Grassley said in a statement Thursday. “What I hope is that my reforms that became law have been implemented well and that agencies and auditors are using the reforms to catch problems.”
He continued:
The law requires periodic audits by inspectors general, like this one, specifically to keep on top of charge card abuse and hold agencies accountable for implementing the required internal controls. If everything is implemented as intended, we’ll stop a lot of purchase card and travel card abuse.
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This post originally appeared on Western Journalism – Equipping You With The Truth
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