A new General Accountability Office report blows the whistle on the Defense and State departments and the Agency for International Development over their sloppy data keeping. The report said that both departments and the agency aren't keeping quality data on contracts and contractor personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan in the Synchronized Predeployment and Operational Tracker (SPOT) system.

That's a pretty big condemnation of these three operations. The GAO found the system isn't fully operational, and cannot track all the required data, including money and the number of personnel wounded or killed.

There's a pretty big divide, too, over how to fix the system. DoD officials disagreed with the GAO's recommendation on improving SPOT. They argue they've already built in new data standards. The State Department, however, argues that there are security issues with entering too much information about local nationals into the system on an unclassified network. The State Department and USAID also argued they don't have the money to input data on all contracts.

So what's the government to do? There are more than 226,000 contractor personnel working in the system--too many to keep track of without computer enhancements. GAO suggested officials should input better data, which would be a starting point for information government officials need about contractors.

If nothing is done, the U.S. government may never know exactly where taxpayer money is going and whether it has any impact. And if these projects are halted, what will happen to the mission and goal in these two war zones?

For more on tracking government contractors:
- check out this Federal Computer Week article

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