Jennifer Dickerson spent more than 40 hours of work over three months to get her Orlando environmental consulting company certified as a women-owned business, a designation that would help her win federal contracts intended to go to disadvantaged businesses. She and her assistant assembled legal documents and tax records, responded to multiple questions, and paid a $275 processing fee to a third-party agency to prove that her small company is majority woman-owned and operated.
“It was important to me to make sure I adhered to all the requirements” of the federal program established in 2000 to set aside a percentage of government contracts for women-owned small businesses, Dickerson says.
Not every business owner shares Dickerson’s sense of responsibility. A recent report critical of the U.S. Small Business Administration’s program revealed that more than 40 percent of companies that got government contracts as women-owned businesses in the last two years were not actually eligible.
Keep reading this article at: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-11-20/lax-oversight-lets-men-pose-as-women-to-win-government-contracts
