If you ever wondered who might be overseeing the government’s private contractors in warzones such as Iraq and Afghanistan, there’s now an answer: Other contractors.

Even as the U.S. increasingly relies on contractors overseas to help build roads and schools, the federal government is routinely allowing them to police each other.

The Government Accountability Office is trying to make sense of the practice – or at least see if there is any real method for hiring oversight contractors. A partial GAO database of about 200 contracts shows the extent of the practice.

In a 29-page report, the GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, said it wanted to know if the departments of Defense and State or the US Agency for International Development—the big three when it comes hiring contractors—were methodically deciding when and how to use contractors for oversight.

The short answer: No.

After eight years in Iraq and Afghanistan, manpower shortages have plagued Defense and State Dept. operations, including contract oversight. That means there aren’t enough people in the federal government to monitor how contracts are fulfilled.

Lax oversight could cost the government money, the report said.  

“This loss of government control may result in decisions that are not in the best interest of the government and may increase vulnerability to waste, fraud and abuse,” the report found.

GAO officials urged contracting agencies to find a better way to plan and explain why certain contractors are needed. John Hutton, director of GAO’s acquisition and sourcing management team, said the report did not find cases of fraud or waste. His office examined 223 contracts with an estimated total value of about a billion dollars.

“We’re saying,” Hutton told the Huffington Post Investigative Fund this week, “you need to understand how you use contractors and what you get by using them.”