The Department of Defense kept government auditors from publicly releasing information about cost overruns in the littoral combat ship (LCS) program, arguing that the cost growth data was sensitive information, though not classified.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) conducted an audit of the Navy’s shipbuilding programs last fall, but were pressured not to publicly release the full report until last week. The edited report released Friday excluded details about the LCS program, a massive shipbuilding project that has wasted an estimated $13 billion.
The Pentagon “deemed the cost growth” of two LCS ships “to be sensitive but unclassified information, which is excluded from this public report,” the GAO said in a footnote to the report. The GAO did not include precise calculations of the cost overruns in the report, but said “the percent difference for each ship was above target cost.”
“This seems to be an overly broad reading of competition-sensitive information,” Mandy Smithberger, who studies military reform at the Project On Government Oversight, told Bloomberg News. “Taxpayers are footing the bill for these overruns. They deserve to know the costs.”
The report noted, without disclosing the amount that both LCS contractors — Lockheed Martin and Austal USA were to deliver 10 ships each — “had only delivered one ship each” by both far exceeding the Navy’s original contract value.” The ships also arrived incomplete, and some of the vessels broke down within a month of being launched.
Michele Mackin, director of acquisition and sourcing management at GAO, told a December hearing of the House Committee on Armed Services that the Navy’s strategy for buying the LCS ships rushed the process.
The Navy reversed standard procedure of “fly before you buy” and instead took a “buy before you fly” approach, Mackin said. Clearly, “this approach has fallen short,” as the littoral combat ship project “has taken longer, cost more, and delivered less capability than expected,” Mackin said.
The hearing examined the $29 billion ship construction project, which saw the price per ship jump from $220 million at the beginning of project to $478 million this year, according to the GAO. (RELATED: Pentagon Needs More Money To Use Weapons Already Paid For, Asks For $6 Billion)
GAO’s Friday report is important “given the Navy’s plans to invest billions of dollars in shipbuilding programs in the future,” the report said. President Donald Trump plans to increase the Navy’s fleet to 350 ships over the next several years, a project that could cost as much as $25 billion per year.
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