Carper praises Marines for clean audit

Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Carper (D-Del.) applauded the U.S. Marine Corps for having a clean financial audit.

“I would like to give a loud ‘Bravo Zulu’ to the Marine Corps for this important achievement in safeguarding taxpayer funds,” Carper said Monday. “After all you can’t manage what you can’t measure and, in these challenging financial times, a clean audit is an important first step.”

{mosads}Carper said the Marine Corps is the first military service to successfully complete this type of audit. He said he’d continue to work with Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and Acting Deputy Secretary Christine Fox to ensure the other military branches successfully complete their 2012 audit.

“I am a firm believer that we can always do better, so I was happy to see the Marine Corps identify several areas in the audit where they can improve and note that efforts to address these weaknesses are already underway,” Carper said. “This is an accomplishment worthy of applause and emulation from the rest of the military.”

Carpers’ committee counterpart, ranking member Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), has been a constant critic of the military’s inability to complete financial audits, especially because the Department of Defense has one of the largest budgets of all federal agencies. But Carper praised the Marine Corps for leading the way in the DOD with this “significant financial quest.”