April 10 (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth

has ordered the termination of IT services contracts, totally

valued at $5.1 billion, with companies such as Accenture ( ACN ) and

Deloitte, a memo showed on Thursday.

The pacts "represent non-essential spending on third party

consultants" for services Pentagon employees can peform, Hegseth

said in the April 10 memo released by the Pentagon.

"These terminations represent $5.1 billion in wasteful

spending ... and nearly $4 billion in estimated savings,"

Hegseth added.