A Transportation Department program designed to help women, minority and disabled owners compete for federal contracts, in fact, may be disadvantaging the very people it is intended to help by failing to root out bad actors.
The Transportation Department’s Disadvantaged Business Enterprise program has continued to give money to contractors in the process of being debarred or suspended for defrauding taxpayers, depriving more deserving firms of millions of dollars, the agency’s internal watchdog reports.
“Weaknesses in DBE program management and implementation have allowed ineligible firms to win DBE contracts and have left the majority of DBE firms without work,” the department’s inspector general said.
The report shines a poignant light on Uncle Sam’s continuing inability to punish wayward contractors or protect taxpayers from instances of procurement fraud.
Federal agencies are supposed to suspend or debar federal contractors who have tried to defraud taxpayers, thus preventing them from getting new business.
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