The Pentagon confirmed Tuesday it has overvalued weapons aid provided to Ukraine by $6.2 billion, with plans to use the available funds for future security assistance packages.
Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters the total overestimation of weapons included in Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA) packages was split between $2.6 billion for fiscal year 2022 and $3.6 billion for FY ‘23.
“During the department’s regular oversight of our execution of presidential drawdown authority for Ukraine, we discovered inconsistencies in equipment valuation for Ukraine. In a significant number of cases, services used replacement costs rather than net book value, thereby overestimating the value of the equipment drawn down from U.S. stocks and provided to Ukraine,” Singh said during a press briefing.
The update on the accounting error follows reports last month that the Pentagon miscalculated the value of weapons aid provided to Ukraine by only about $3 billion.
Reps. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) and Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chairs of the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs Committees, respectively, said at the time the overestimation was “extremely problematic, to say the least” and called on the Biden administration to use the extra funds to provide Ukraine with advanced munitions (Defense Daily, May 22).
Singh reiterated the $6.2 billion is associated with weapons pulled from existing Pentagon inventories for PDA packages and not capabilities procured from industry Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI) funds.
“These valuation errors in no way limit or restricted the size of any of our PDAs or impacted the provision of support to Ukraine, and while the DoD retains the authority to utilize the recaptured PDA, this has no bearing on appropriated USAI or Ukraine PDA replenishment funding approved by Congress,” Singh said.
Singh was also asked how the Pentagon planned to proceed with the extra $6.2 billion, and said it will go back into the pot of money that’s used to build new security assistance packages.
“It’s another pot of money that we have access to, so when we have our next presidential drawdown package to roll out, it’s not like we’re going to have allocated, here, this is $6 billion that we have found through our reevaluation. It’s just going to go back into the pot of money that we have allocated for the PDAs, and we will roll out the next package when we have that announcement,” Singh said.
DoD Comptroller Mike McCord reissued guidance on how to value equipment after the department discovered the miscalculation, Singh noted, with the aim to “to ensure we use the most accurate of accounting methods.”