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Thursday, August 21, 2008
More Secrecy Won't Help David
Over the last few weeks, there have been a smattering of reports about a modern-day David vs. Goliath struggle in federal contracting. In this saga, large government contractors are winning bids for contracts that are designated by the government for small businesses. At the end of July, the Small Business Administration (SBA) Inspector General released a report that found Blackwater USA may have won numerous contracts (39 in fact) set aside for small businesses. This report is the result of a request and investigation of Blackwater launched by House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) back in March. What might be the worst part of this is the SBA has repeatedly tried to hide the fact that huge companies were winning small business contracts.
The Blackwater case is not an isolated incident either, nor is this restricted to the SBA. According to Chris Gunn with the American Small Business League (ASBL), there have been more than a dozen federal investigations since 2003, all of which have concluded that Fortune 500 companies and other large businesses are winning contracts designated for small businesses. News reports, government investigations, and additional evidence make a pretty convincing case that Goliath is winning this battle despite government's efforts to the contrary, and has been for a while.
That's why I was surprised today when I got a press release from the ASBL warning about a new Bush administration policy that would make the reporting of annual revenue and number of employees optional for contractors when they register with the Central Contracting Registration (CCR) system (see CCR notice). That's right - this change would make it more difficult for the government to award small business contracts to small businesses. Past investigations have concluded that even when required to report this information, contractors deliberately mislead government officials, information that was provided was poor, and worst of all, government employees did not consider the poor quality of the information in making contracting decisions.
Well, then, what makes the administration think that this situation will be improved by having less information about whether companies are small or not? Granted there is more than one problem with the current system, but having too much information is not one of them. Once this rule is implemented, it will be that much harder for the government to award small business contracts to the right entities - something it is already having a very difficult time doing. Doesn't President Bush know that David is supposed to win?
Posted by Adam Hughes
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