An internal research requested by Pentagon officials has suffered a timely demise. The Defense Department finds it necessary to terminate the project after damning results of wasteful spending that amounted to $125 billion surfaced during the course of the study.
The venture is supposed to help the Pentagon turn around its back-office bureaucracy. Since the negative findings will definitely impact the defense budgets, eliminating the entire undertaking has been pursued.
Based on a report released last January 2015, the department has intended to bank in $125 billion for the next five years of its operations. Straightening its bureaucratic procedures will mean instituting settlements and early retirements, abolishing overpricing contractors and maximizing the utilization of digital technology.
The Defense Business Board, an advisory panel comprised of McKinsey Company executives and consultants, reveals the Pentagon has been spending a quarter of its $580-billion budget on overhead operations like human resources, logistics and accounting.
It has been found that the Defense Department employed an astounding 1,014,000 people to fill back-office positions that are way out of range from the frontlines. These include civilians, uniformed personnel and contractors.
What is even more astonishing is the fact that these desk job personnel are supporting a military that has almost the same number of people employed at the Pentagon. Currently, there are around 1.3 million soldiers on active duty.
The Defense Department's study has been intended to divert the $125-billion fund to the troops and their armaments or to the nuclear program of the military.
However, some Pentagon officials have a different view. Considering that the department has already suffered cuts during the previous years, restricting its budget further will leave the military starving to support its operations. This has led to the termination of the project.
According to Robert Stein, a private equity investor from Florida who is a former Chairman of the Defense Business Board, the findings of the study is undeniable. He adds that it will be dangerous if the spending approach remains unchecked.
The continued existence of bureaucracy at the Pentagon can have perilous repercussions. The Defense Department's budget will be further trimmed down under the 2011 Budget Control Act wherein the military will have its $113-billion fund slashed in the next four years unless the President and Congress will intervene.
