The Defense Department is inadequately following guidance on single-bid contracts and failing to encourage the type of competition that saves taxpayer dollars, the inspector general’s office found in a recent audit.
In a review of 107 contracts valued at nearly $1.4 billion, along with another half-billion dollars’ worth of contract modifications, the IG determined that the military’s competition advocates failed to follow single-bid guidance in 31 cases. The Pentagon also neglected to “develop adequate plans to increase competition because Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy (DPAP) did not provide effective oversight of the plans,” the report said. And Defense officials did not develop specific steps to improve competition rates in their plans or “develop specific steps to prevent 39 of 47 contract modifications, valued at $390.9 million, from exceeding the three-year limitation on awarding contract modifications without first recompeting.”
The IG recommended improved monitoring and creation of an overall schedule on altering contracts. The service largely agreed.
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