Government contract data has come a long way since the Federal Procurement Data System of yore. But in a recent analysis of USAspending.gov, the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) has found some troubling irregularities in federal contract spending data.
For example, in the FY 2009 top 100 contractor ranking (accessed on April 20, 2010):
- ITT Corporation appears twice—#17 and #97;
- Northrop Grumman Corporation is #3 and its Northrop Grumman Ship Systems, Inc. subsidiary is #35; and
- McDonnell Douglas Corporation, which merged with Boeing in 1997, is #66.
Strangely, the site also lists the “Government of The United States” as the #22 recipient of FY 2009 contract dollars.
These irregularities create confusion and paint an incomplete picture of the federal contracting landscape, and so POGO has sent a letter to the General Services Administration (GSA) urging the agency to address them.
POGO hopes these irregularities will be fixed promptly. As we state in our letter, “A failure to do so jeopardizes the integrity of the data and the federal contracting system.”
— by Bryan Rahija – April 22, 2010 – for the Project on Government Oversight (POGO)
