From my perspective, the rot started when OCs Cis Eng got their own budgets and started the rot. The budget holder exercised his new found freedom and thought he was a jack-the-lad when it came to striking deals direct with companies - Dell, Cisco, Gateway, etc - because he thought he 'knew' how the contracts and procurement system worked. Only problem was, he didn't tell the stackers when he had ordered them (so no tendering or formal contract raised), when the computors were received he signed and cleared the 640's himself (so not brought on charge) and didn't ask for the kit to be put on an inventory when they were dished out. Result? - lots of inventory holders..and others... thinking they were freebies and the said items possibly 'vanishing into the night'. When the bean-counters finally got round to counting how much had been spent on computers and how many they could track down, it didn't take an Einstein to work out that 1+1 doesn't = 3. When the stackers tried to get that particular purchase sorted out, it was a case of 'wind yer neck in, it's my budget and I'll do what I want' and OC Eng supported him!!
This happened on one unit I was on, there must have been many other cases elsewhere.