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Revolving door between Pentagon and defense contractors continues to spin

November 15, 2018 By Andrew Smith

Almost two years after Donald Trump came to Washington pledging to “drain the swamp” of special interests and clear waste from the Pentagon’s supply chain, a steady stream of retired generals, admirals and government procurement officers are still accepting lucrative positions with companies that do business with the military.

A report released Nov. 4th by the advocacy group Project on Government Oversight (POGO) found that major U.S. defense contractors have hired hundreds of former high-level government officials in recent years, including at least 50 since Trump became president. The report lends new visibility to long-standing concerns about a revolving door between the government agencies that award massive contracts for military supplies and services and the businesses that profit from those contracts.

Corporate influence in Washington was a campaign trail rallying point for Trump, who said soon after the 2016 election that there should be a “lifetime restriction” on top defense officials going to work for defense contractors. “The people that are making these deals for the government, they should never be allowed to go work for those companies,” he said on Fox News.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.stripes.com/news/us/revolving-door-between-pentagon-and-defense-contractors-continues-to-spin-1.555340

Filed Under: Contracting News Tagged With: contractor personnel, DoD, POGO, revolving door

Reforms to IGs, acquisition, FOIA included in POGO’s ‘Baker’s Dozen’ of congressional priorities

March 3, 2015 By ei2admin

The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) outlined 13 congressional priorities that would make the federal government more transparent, accountable and ethical in a new report.

POGO’s 2015 “Baker’s Dozen” includes areas for legislative reform as well as issues that would benefit from improved oversight, according to the Feb. 11 report.

Near the top of the group’s list is a call to make agency inspectors general more independent and accountable. POGO asks Congress to use legislation to clarify IG authorities and access to agency records, quickly fill IG vacancies and require more thorough responses from agencies on reports. The organization also calls out the Justice Department in particular, asking that the DOJ IG be given more authority to investigate misconduct by DOJ attorneys.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.fiercegovernment.com/story/reforms-igs-acquisition-foia-included-pogos-bakers-dozen-congressional-prio/2015-02-17

 

Filed Under: Contracting News Tagged With: acquisition reform, CICA, DOJ, FOIA, IG, POGO, procurement reform, transparency, VA

Contractors concerned about legislation that would centralize suspension process

November 26, 2013 By ei2admin

Contractor advocates are concerned that new legislation moving through the House could result in a more rigid suspension and debarment process.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has approved a bill known as the SUSPEND (Stop Unworthy Spending) Act, which proposes a centralized board to manage all agency suspension and debarment issues.

The idea is to create a more consistent system — though some agencies would be able to use waivers to maintain their own suspension and debarment processes.

There were 836 discretionary suspensions and 1,722 discretionary debarments in fiscal 2012, according to data provided by the committee. Both figures represent a decrease from the previous year.

A committee spokesman said in past years some agencies have reported very few suspension or debarment actions — despite significant contract spending.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.washingtonpost.com//business/capitalbusiness/contractors-concerned-about-legislation-that-would-centralize-suspension-process/2013/11/14/277eb12c-4642-11e3-a196-3544a03c2351_story.html

Filed Under: Contracting News Tagged With: debarment, POGO, PSC, SUSPEND, suspension

Contractors brace for coming defense cuts

January 13, 2012 By ei2admin

As the Pentagon readies a fiscal 2013 budget expected to map out $487 billion in cuts over the next 10 years, many contractors already are bracing for a new climate of austerity, but they are heartened by the Obama administration’s pledge to preserve America’s industrial base.

At the Pentagon on Thursday (January 5, 2012) with President Obama, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Deputy Secretary Ashton B. Carter stressed the need for innovation and scientific progress. Both touched on the importance of innovation, maintaining the industrial base, and fostering science and technology.

“As we reduce the overall defense budget, we will protect our investments in special operations forces, new technologies like [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] and unmanned systems, space and cyberspace capabilities, and our capacity to quickly mobilize,” Panetta said.

Carter said, “this guidance tells us to preserve investment, and even in some cases to increase our capabilities in key areas that are clearly important to the future — special forces in counterterrorism, countering weapons of mass destruction, building partner capacity, cyber, and aspects of our science and technology investments — making sure that we don’t simply revert to yesterday’s pre-9/11 force structure under the pressure of budget cuts.”

He offered assurance that the Defense Department does not “eat the seed corn” by making cuts that are irreversible. “As we make program changes, we want to make sure that 10 years, 15 years from now, we still have an industrial base that supports our key weapon systems even if we’re not able to buy in those areas at the rates or in the volume that we had planned before we were handed this $487 billion cut.”

The Professional Services Council, a contractors trade group, issued a statement applauding the administration for recognizing that a “strong, flexible and resilient industrial base is integral to ensuring future readiness and mission success.” But the council warned against “arbitrary cuts” to contracts, programs and personnel.

“Clearly, the planned reductions will have an impact on both the military and the industry. Those impacts could be exacerbated if the department does not pay close attention to how it can best capitalize on the capabilities of the private sector,” said PSC President and Chief Executive Officer Stan Soloway. “It is therefore more important than ever that the department buy smart and ensure it genuinely incentivizes and rewards performance and innovation rather than simply buying at the lowest price.”

The Aerospace Industries Association also was encouraged by the Pentagon’s approach, saying in a statement that officials “recognized the importance of a strong industrial base” and for planning reductions based on “a new national defense strategy … rather than simply lower numbers across-the-board.”

Richard Rector, a partner with DLA Piper who runs the law firm’s contracting practice, told Government Executive he expects “contractors’ work and the legal work to track the decline in spending, and that companies will be less willing to accept a loss on a key programs as the pie shrinks and there are fewer large programs.”

During the previous defense spending downturn, in the mid-1990s, the number of bid protests went down commensurately, he said, but companies today are apt to be “less sanguine about accepting a loss when profitability and margins are thin, and more likely to fight over things that at other times they would let slide.” That might mean more bid protests and more claims against agency contract officers for changing the scope of contract work, he added.

The American Federation of Government Employees urged the Pentagon “to take a balanced approach to spending reductions that subjects private contractors to the same cost-cutting scrutiny that has already been placed upon the civilian workforce,” AFGE President John Gage said in a statement.

“Tens of thousands of civilian jobs are slated for elimination, despite strong evidence that having civilians perform these jobs is the most cost-effective strategy,” he said. “Meanwhile, the department continues to increase spending on contractors, even though they are more costly and less accountable.”

The nonprofit Project on Government Oversight criticized both Defense officials and an advance story about the Pentagon review in The New York Times for failing to address possible savings through decreased reliance on contractors. “Beyond the secretary’s failure to provide specifics on how he’s going to achieve his budget savings, it was what he didn’t say that left us flabbergasted,” POGO Executive Director Danielle Brian said in a statement. “Not once did he mention the need to take a serious look at the more than $200 billion the Pentagon spends each year on outside service contractors.”

Brian said her group’s research shows the Pentagon spends more on service contractors than on its uniformed military and civilian employees combined, and that contractors, on average, bill the government “nearly twice as much as it would have cost federal employees to do the same jobs.”

Defense budget analysts Barry Watts and Todd Harrison of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments wrote a December 2011 op-ed in Politico underlining the importance of contractors in maintaining the industrial base and the need for a long-term Pentagon strategy that sets priorities for critical capabilities.

“For-profit companies, defense firms cannot afford to maintain a broad range of weapon design and production capabilities if there is no funding,” they warned. “In 1997, for example, the British navy wanted to develop a new class of nuclear attack submarine, only to find that the British defense industrial base no longer had the necessary design or production skills. Fortunately, the Royal Navy could turn to a U.S. firm for the lost expertise. But if the Pentagon finds itself in a similar situation, to whom would it turn?”

— by Charles S. Clark – Government Executive – January 6, 2012 at http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=49718&oref=todaysnews

Filed Under: Contracting News Tagged With: budget cuts, capabilities statement, DLA, DoD, industrial base, insourcing, outsourcing, POGO, spending

Move over, FAPIIS – POGO freshens up its contractor database

October 3, 2011 By ei2admin

The federal government’s largest contractors have paid $25.3 billion in fines and penalties for everything from A to Z: from improper accounting practices to selling the government defective Zylon body armor. These and more than 1,400 other misconduct instances can be found in the Federal Contractor Misconduct Database (FCMD), which has now been updated with fiscal year 2010′s top 100 ranking.  [Note: The FCMD is published by the Project On Government Oversight (POGO), a nonprofit watchdog group.]

The top 100 features 7 new contractors, including international accounting firm Deloitte LLP, package delivery company United Parcel Service (UPS), and linguistic services provider Mission Essential Personnel. The FCMD now includes misconduct information on 160 of the federal government’s largest suppliers of goods and services.

The top 100 contractors received $276 billion in contracts last fiscal year,
accounting for slightly more than half of the $536 billion in contracts awarded
that year. As of today, these 100 contractors have accumulated 821 misconduct
instances. Thirty-eight of the top 100 have zero or one instance, a reminder
that misconduct need not be accepted as a cost of doing business with the
federal government.

As has occurred in the past, the USAspending.gov data on which the top 100 ranking is based
contains errors. Therefore, you will see double listings for Booz Allen
Hamilton, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman.

Among the instances you will find in the FCMD:

  • A Department of Defense Inspector General finding that Boeing overcharged the Army by about $13 million (131.5 percent) for
    spare helicopter parts.
  • A DoD Inspector General audit report issued 4 months later that found United
    Technologies’ Sikorsky Aircraft unit overcharged the U.S. Army by as much as $12 million for Blackhawk
    helicopter spare parts
    .
  • BP’s agreement to provide $1 billion to begin restoration efforts
    following last year’s massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
  • The assault plea of a former DynCorp employee who stabbed a man in
    Afghanistan in November 2010.
  • FedEx’s agreement to pay the United States $8 million to resolve allegations of overcharging federal
    agencies for package deliveries.
  • The $4 million settlement of claims that Fluor employees defrauded the federal purchase
    card
    (“P-card”) program at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Nuclear Site.
  • Honeywell International’s payment of millions in fines to federal and state authorities for environmental and safety violations at its uranium
    hexafluoride (UF6) conversion facility in Illinois.
  • Humana’s $3.4 million fine for violating Florida’s Medicaid fraud reporting law.
  • IBM’s $10 million settlement of Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
    charges
    that its Korean and Chinese subsidiaries gave bribes to government
    officials.
  • Corruption charges brought against former SAIC employees alleged to have received kickbacks and overcharged New York
    City
    on the CityTime information technology project.

POGO’s FCMD complements the federal government’s contractor responsibility
database, the Federal Awardee Performance and Integrity Information System, or
FAPIIS. POGO was pleased to discover the recent addition of several new useful
features to FAPIIS, which is on its way to becoming an indispensable resource
that strengthens accountability over the more than $1 trillion in taxpayer money
spent each year on federal contracts and grants.

– Neil Gordon is a POGO Investigator.  Published Sept. 29, 2011 at http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2011/09/move-over-fapiis-pogo-freshens-up-its-contractor-misconduct-database.html.

Filed Under: Contracting News Tagged With: FAPIIS, fine, fraud, misconduct, overcharge, oversight, penalty, POGO, responsibility

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