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June 19, 2020 By cs

Feds spend billions on COVID-19 contracts, often without fully competitive bidding

When nurses and doctors across the country were struggling to treat coronavirus patients without enough protective gear, and the federal government was scrambling to find those supplies, Quedon Baul saw an opportunity.

His three-person company in McKinney, Texas, distributes medical supplies but didn’t have much experience with face shields.  Still, he landed two government contracts worth up to $20 million to deliver the personal protective equipment.  He couldn’t meet the first deadline, so he found subcontractors to do the job.

“You get an opportunity, you take it,” Baul says. “It wasn’t my first rodeo, but it’s certainly my first big rodeo.”

The U.S. government has granted contracts worth as much as $25 billion as it races to address the COVID-19 public health crisis.  NPR reviewed a database of thousands of contracting actions and found more than 250 companies that got contracts worth more than $1 million without going through a fully competitive bidding process.

Some of the companies, such as Baul’s, had little or no experience with personal protective equipment.  Others had never worked in the medical field at all.  Contractors also included a company that imported vodka and a school security consultant.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.npr.org/2020/06/09/869052415/feds-spend-billions-on-covid-19-contracts-often-without-fully-competitive-biddin

The Contracting Education Academy at Georgia Tech has established a webpage where all contract-related developments related to the coronavirus (COVID-19) are summarized.  Find the page at: https://contractingacademy.gatech.edu/coronavirus-information-for-contracting-officers-and-contractors/

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: compelling reason determination, competitive bid, contractor performance, coronavirus, COVID-19, delivery, DHS, experience, FEMA, Homeland Security, noncompetitive, pandemic, performance, PPE, urgent

August 15, 2018 By AMK

Millions flow to Pentagon’s banned contractors via a back door

Some of the world’s largest companies have benefited from a little-known law that lets the Defense Department override decisions barring contractors accused or convicted of bribery, fraud, theft, and other crimes from doing business with the government.

International Business Machines Corp., Boeing Co., BP Plc, and several other contractors have received special dispensation to fulfill multimillion-dollar government contracts through “compelling reason determinations.” That process allows the Defense Department in rare cases to determine that the need to fulfill certain contracts justifies doing business with companies that have been suspended from government work.

The 22 determinations were released by the General Services Administration at the request of Bloomberg Government, allowing for the first collective examination of the cases and the system that allowed them.

The determinations, also referred to as waivers or overrides, included contracts to provide food services for Defense Department personnel at an Army base in Afghanistan, “vital” web-hosting services for an agency that serves the Pentagon and the U.S. intelligence community, and aviation fuel sold to the Defense Logistics Agency.

Keep reading this article at: https://about.bgov.com/blog/millions-flow-pentagons-banned-contractors-via-back-door/

See further analysis at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/charlestiefer/2018/08/05/study-of-waivers-of-federal-contractor-debarments-leads-to-review-of-major-criminal-charges/#654bac3c6ac3

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: bribery, compelling reason determination, debar, debarment, DLA, DoD, fraud, GSA, theft

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