Pentagon pays USD 15 million to invalid employee accounts

WASHINGTON: The Pentagon may have paid USD 15.4 million into invalid civilian employee accounts over a six-year period, including to some 86 dead employees, an investigation has concluded.

The review found that the Defence Department was paying into accounts with invalid Social Security numbers, that some employees' birth dates were below the legal age to work and that multiple employee wages were deposited into a single account.

The Defence Civilian Pay System (DCPS), which manages payroll for the department's 7.3 million civilian employees, was responsible for more than USD 148 billion in wages over the six-year period reviewed by the Department of Defence's Office of the Inspector General.

The USD 15.4 million deposited into invalid accounts is a very small percentage of the total wages. Still, the problems found by the review of deposits between January 2002 and April 2008 raise questions about oversight and vetting of employee information at the department, CNN reported.

The investigators found problems with invalid Social Security numbers that should have been relatively easy to spot, including three Social Security numbers with all zeroes in one section.

The investigators also found USD 905,000 of wages paid to deceased employees because the DCPS "did not include procedures to identify deceased employees and recover improper payments."