U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced the cancellation of several multibillion-dollar contracts and marked them as “wasteful spending.”

The Department of Defense terminated 15 contracts worth $5.1 billion, noting that the agreements were unnecessary.

“This step ensures that taxpayer money is used in the most important situation, thereby enhancing our defense capabilities,” Secretary Heggs said in a press statement.

The cancelled contracts include projects related to the Defense Health Agency, the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Navy and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

Details of canceling the contract

The Defense Health Agency’s consulting contract involves private companies such as Accenture, Deloitte and Booz Allen.

The Air Force’s cloud IT services contract was also cancelled, and the Department of Defense said it could use existing resources to manage these services.

The Naval Administration Office’s business process consultation agreement is one of the terminated contracts.

DARPA, the agency of the Department of Defense, focused on advanced research and revolutionary technology, also saw its IT Help Desk service contracts cancelled. The department clarified that these services could be handled by existing staff and resources.

In addition, 11 consulting contracts related to climate change, diversity, COVID-19 response and other non-critical activities were stopped.

According to the Department of Defense, these cancellations will save $4 billion and will now be spent on strengthening and modernizing U.S. military power. “Every dollar saved here will be used to make the U.S. military power stronger,” the statement added.