Lavish Purchases Made With Government Issued Credit Cards
Published April 10th, 2008 in Credit News.
According to a Government Accountability Office report released yesterday, government officials in a slew of different agencies from the Post Office to the Department of Energy used company credit cards to purchase anything from Ipods to online dating services.
The GAO blamed the excessive and extravagant purchases on so-called internal control breakdowns in certain government agencies’ purchase card programs, meaning most couldn’t keep tabs on their purchases or come up with receipts when asked.
Other ridiculous items purchased using government issued credit cards include lavish steak dinners at Ruth Chris with so-called “top shelf liquor,” lingerie, digital cameras, computers, laptops, expensive suits, and more.
Many of these items, totaling more than $1.8 million, couldn’t be tracked down for the study and were presumed to be lost or stolen.
In one case, a cardholder used the government purchase card program to embezzle more than $642,000 over a six-year period from the Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service firefighting fund.
Established in the late 1980s, the purchase card system is utilized by about 300,000 government employees and is intended to streamline federal purchasing.
And what a great time to release the report, right after we all pay our taxes…
(photo: vogueqtr)
