The State Department “got what it paid for” when it hired embattled contractor ArmorGroup North America to provide security to the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, a new report from the Wartime Contracting Commission found. Unfortunately, the commission also found State had little choice because federal law prohibits the department from choosing security contractors based on performance rather than cost. According to the report: Unlike other federal agencies, the U.S. Department of State is forbidden by law to select anything but the lowest price and ‘technically acceptable’ offer when awarding contracts to protect its overseas buildings — even if this…
Browsing: Procurement
Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, made his debut as ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight today. During the hearing on improving government procurement data systems, Bennett spoke of the importance of balancing the need for transparency with the need to protect some contract information from the public eye. (Check FederalTimes.com later for more on the hearing) Industry representative, Trey Hodgkins, national security and procurement policy vice president for TechAmerica, testified that companies were concerned new policies might permit the publication of un-redacted contracts and allow access to past performance reports, which could contain…
Earlier today I previewed reports the Government Accountability Office and the Defense Department Inspector General will release tomorrow highlighting the depth of auditing problems at the Defense Contract Audit Agency. But these watchdogs are not the only ones with concerns about DCAA’s audit management. The Wartime Contracting Commission — a bipartisan, congressionally chartered panel tasked with making recommendations to improve contingency contracting — released this report today calling on DCAA to abandon the all-or-nothing approach it takes when rendering opinions on contractor business systems. In December, DCAA scrapped its opinion that allowed business systems with minor deficiencies to be deemed…
Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., chairwoman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs contracting oversight subcommittee, plans to dive into the way federal agencies track government procurement data at a hearing scheduled for Sept. 29. In a news release today, McCaskill’s office said the hearing will “assess the problems of the decentralized and cumbersome systems presently in place, and discuss current plans to develop a new platform for integrating these systems to ensure that goals of efficiency, transparency, and accessibility are met.” The Federal Acquisition Regulation Council recently published a proposed rule to fulfill congressional mandates to integrate data from…
The Wartime Contracting Commission is the latest body to announce it will investigate the State Department’s oversight of a controversial contract for private guard services in Afghanistan. The congressionally chartered commission called a hearing for Sept. 14 in the wake of a Sept. 1 Project on Government Oversight letter to the department alleging employees of the private security contractor Armour Group North America engaged in lewd acts and hazed junior employees, compromising the security of U.S. diplomats at the embassy in Kabul. The hearing will focus on “the underlying questions of what the State Department contract require[s] of contract-employee conduct,…
The folks who draw up the Federal Acquisition Regulation have issued their proposal to enact a section of the 2009 Defense authorization meant to ensure a contractor’s poor past performance is not overlooked during the contract award process. The proposed rule published in today’s Federal Register creates a new database called the “Federal Awardee Performance and Integrity Information System,” or FAPIIS for short. Contracting officers will be required to use this centralized database when making contract and task order awards. The timing of the proposal couldn’t be better. Last month, acquisition officials answered some tough questions from Congress about how…
The Small Business Administration launched a new online course today designed to help small firms win federal contracts. The course gives businesses information about the federal market, such as where to find opportunities, contract rules and how to sell to federal agencies. The course, “Recovery Act Opportunities: How to Win Federal Contracts,” is part of the new Obama administration initiative to increase the use of small business among federal agencies. Last month, the White House announced SBA and the Commerce Department will take part in 200 outreach, education and training events over the next thee months to help small businesses…
I recently reported that the Small Business Administration and the Commerce Department were planning to participate in more than 200 events boost small businesses contracting under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. But it looks like those agencies aren’t the only ones working to ensure small businesses benefit from stimulus spending. The Transportation Department announced today that it has dedicated $20 million in Recovery Act funds to create a “Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Bonding Assistance Program.” The program, which is run by the department’s Office of Small Disadvantaged Business Utilization, allows small and disadvantaged businesses to apply for reimbursements for the…
This weekend I took a trip to Ellis Island, which is operated by the National Park Service, in New York City. While I expected to discover quite a bit about the conditions my ancestors endured when they passed through there in the early 1900s, I did not expect to discover a government contracting story that seems to prove the adage “the more things change, the more they stay the same.†According to an exhibit at the history of the immigration station, after the original complex of wooden buildings burned to the ground in 1897, the Treasury Department ran a competition…
The Office of Management and Budget will release three policy memos today that promise to reform how government uses contractors. One memo directs agencies on how to manage the multi-sector workforce. This memo states that agencies don’t have a handle on how contractor employees are used in their offices. It orders agencies to: Coordinate their program, human capital, acquisition and finance offices to strategically plan for outsourcing. Conduct a pilot program to test multi-sector workforce management plans Develop guidelines to insource inherently governmental functions, work that closely supports those functions and work that could be more cheaply performed by federal…