Aircraft Purchased In 2008 Has Never Flown For The Agency In Afghanistan

The Office of Inspector General for the Justice Department has released an audit which found that the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has spent more than $86 million on an airplane that has never flown for the agency since its acquisition in 2008.

The aircraft was intended to support the agency's drug interdiction efforts in Afghanistan. According to the report's executive summary, the purpose of the Global Discovery program was for the DEA to purchase one ATR 42-500 aircraft (ATR 500) and retrofit it with advanced surveillance equipment and transport capabilities to support the DEA’s counternarcotics operations in Afghanistan.

Funding for these DEA efforts was received through two sources, DEA’s direct appropriation, which was used to purchase the ATR 500 for nearly $8.6 million in fiscal year 2008, and five MOUs with the DOD for $29,080,137, which was used to purchase parts for the ATR 500 and to more generally support DEA aviation operations in Afghanistan.

As of February 2015, the DEA had spent $30,370,676 (81 percent) of this combined funding.

The OIG also determined that the DOD separately expended an additional $67.9 million of its own appropriated funds toward the cost of modification, and to build a hangar for the plane at Camp Alvarado, located at the Kabul International Airport, to house the ATR 500 for use in Afghanistan. Thus, as of July 2015, in total, the DEA and DOD have spent more than $86 million in appropriated funds on the ATR 500.

The audit was conducted after a whistleblower sent a letter to the Inspector General alleging that the DEA had misused DOF funds that were intended for the DEA's counternarcotics aviation mission in Afghanistan by "misdirecting, diverting, and spending the money for purposes unrelated to the DEA's aviation operations."

The OIG found that the Global Discovery program has missed every intended delivery date since the ATR 500 was purchased in September 2008, cost nearly 4 times its original anticipated amount of $22 million, and is currently in an un-flyable state. The aircraft has never flown in Afghanistan as originally intended and, because the DEA removed all aviation operations from Afghanistan in July 2015, it likely never will. Moreover, despite the DEA’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, as of March 2016, the DOD continued to spend appropriated funds in an effort to make the aircraft operational and flyable.

In addition, the DEA did not fully comply with the FAR and its own procedures in the procurement of the ATR 500. We also determined that the DEA transferred possession of the aircraft to the DOD to perform modifications on the aircraft for more than 3 years without any formal agreement with the DOD to ensure timely completion of the modifications and oversight of the Global Discovery program.

Further, the DEA has purchased approximately $8.5 million in parts for the ATR 500 that it cannot utilize until the modifications are complete and the aircraft has been made flyable. The expected completion date for the Global Discovery project is now June 2016.

Moreover, it was determined that the DEA spent $2,461,401 in MOU funding from the DOD, which was intended to support the DEA’s two Beech King Air 350’s operating in Afghanistan, on unallowable and unsupported expenditures. For example, we found that the DEA charged $2,383,193 in Global Discovery program related expenditures, travel-related expenditures for non-Afghanistan operations, training unrelated to Afghanistan, and other unallowable expenditures. The DEA also charged $78,208 to the MOUs in unsupported expenditures.

Finally, the DEA did not ensure that the MOUs it entered into with the DOD had clear objectives and deliverables in order to determine if the use of MOU funds had any impact on its counternarcotics mission in Afghanistan. Without established deliverables, and because the DEA did not accurately track its performance, the DEA was unable to perform a meaningful review and analysis of its operations to determine whether or not it was effectively assessing and meeting operational needs in Afghanistan.

(Image included with IOG report)

FMI: https://oig.justice.gov/reports/2016/a1616.pdf