DODIG-2021-077 found DoD's own procurement-tracking system (FPDS-NG) overstated a sample of OT consortium awards by roughly a factor of three

other-transactions-authoritydod-inspector-generaldefense-fundingfpds-ngdodig-2021-077

DODIG-2021-077 found: "In total, our sample of 13 base OTs awarded through consortiums, valued at $24.6 billion in FPDS-NG, were actually 718 OT projects awarded through consortiums, with a value of $8.7 billion based on the information in the agreement files." The $24.6 billion figure the Federal Procurement Data System-Next Generation (FPDS-NG) reported for the sample reflected estimated contract ceilings rather than actual obligated or awarded value; the underlying agreement files showed the real total obligated across 718 individual projects was $8.7 billion — roughly 35% of the system-reported figure. The report attributes the gap to FPDS-NG not being configured to track consortium sub-awards, and to contracting personnel reporting ceiling estimates rather than actual values.

This is a concrete, Tier 1, direct DoD IG audit finding illustrating the mechanism behind claim-crs-gao-found-dod-lacks-systematic-ot-funding-data-by-subject-area's "DoD lacks authoritative data" finding — not an abstract description of a tracking gap, but a measured instance of how large the resulting distortion was in one audited sample. A related FPDS-NG tracking failure — of attribution rather than magnitude — is cited inside DODIG-2022-127's Prior Coverage appendix as a finding of a separate GAO report (GAO-21-501, July 2021): the database reported that one consortium management firm received $7.2 billion in agreements, when in actuality the firm distributed nearly all of those dollars to five pharmaceutical companies. GAO-21-501 itself was not independently read in this vault; the characterization rests on DODIG-2022-127's restatement.