- Defense Secretary Pete Hegeth has confirmed $ 5.1 billion in IT savings
- They will be realized by terminating contracts with accenture and others
- DOGE has now enabled DOD to save nearly $ 6 billion, says Hegeth`
$ 5.1 billion in IT contracts has been canceled by the Department of Defense (DOD) under the guidance of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), new evidence has shown.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegeth signed a memorandum describing the cancellations, which mostly consisted of “advice and other non-essential services.”
As Musk’s device suggests, Dod also claims to have improved the effectiveness of removing unnecessary steps and duplication, allowing it to allocate cash to other core areas to the scope of the agency, such as “better health care for our warriors and their families.”
DOD terminates $ 5.1 billion in IT contracts
The terminated contracts include “$ 1.8 billion in consultancy contracts granted by the Defense Health Agency to various companies in the private sector, a $ 1.4 billion company cloud IT service contract assigned to a software dealer, and a $ 500 million Navy contract for business process advice.”
Affected companies include Accenture, Deloitte and Booz Allen.
Hegeth also noted a $ 500 million contract, awarded to Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency for IT -Helpdesk services, was “completely duplicative” of services that Defense Information Systems Agency already provides.
DOD also terminated 11 contracts related to diversity, justice and inclusion, climate change and Covid-19.
Although the savings only account for a touch of over half a percent of DOD’s budget of $ 883.7 billion, Musk’s goal of smoothing unnecessary expenses is at least commendable.
However, critics have claimed that there are more factors to consider than just how much a contract costs, and calls on the government to agree on contracts that meet its demands with more efficiency and to implement performance implications.
More broadly for DOD, this latest announcement of the newly confirmed $ 580 million cut to certain programs, contracts and grants, bringing the total number to almost $ 6 billion in savings enabled by DOGE.
