ethics | The Contracting Education Academy

July 17, 2020 By cs

Former HR official steered sole-source $5 million training contract to friends, VA’s IG says

A former top human resources executive at the Department of Veterans Affairs improperly steered a contract to benefit two of his friends, the agency’s inspector general found in a recent report.

Peter Shelby, who briefly served as VA’s assistant secretary for human resources and administration, violated ethics laws and abused his position to award a $5 million contract to two friends.

The contract “resulted entirely in waste,” James Mitchell, VA’s acting assistant inspector general, said.

The contract was for leadership development and training for VA employees and applicant assessment tools. Shelby was friendly with the owner of the service-disabled veteran-owned small business that received the $5 million contract. He was also friends with the vice president of Blanchard, one of the subcontractors on the project, who had endorsed Shelby for the assistant secretary position back in 2017.

According to the IG, Shelby directed his staff to pursue a contract with the small business under a specific VA sole-source authority, which allows the department, under limited circumstances, to avoid the usual competitive bidding procedures. But in this case, those authorities were misused to benefit Shelby and the preferred small business, the IG said.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/veterans-affairs/2020/07/former-va-chco-steered-5m-training-and-development-contract-to-friends-ig-says/

October 25, 2019 By cs

Government answers FAQs about feds attending conferences

Federal employees traveling to conferences now have some clarity about whether accepting registration fees is considered an in-kind payment.

The Office of Governmentwide Policy issued new regulations stating it is not an in-kind payment if a federal employee receives a waived or discounted registration fee while participating as a speaker, panelist, or presenter.

Therefore, the waived and discounted registration fees will not need to be reported to the Office of Government Ethics.

Read article and listen to audio podcast at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/federal-newscast/2019/10/government-answers-faqs-about-feds-attending-conferences/

October 21, 2019 By cs

The insidious threat of pay to play

The government contracting world is deeply vulnerable to fraud, says a former federal investigator.

News that a former FEMA administrator was arrested recently for taking bribes from a contractor — one who landed $1.8 billion in federal contracts to repair Puerto Rico’s electrical grid after Hurricane Maria — was hardly surprising to those of us who work in fraud risk management.

Why? Because, unfortunately, the government contracting world is deeply vulnerable to fraud. Given the huge amounts of money at stake and the power that federal officials have in deciding winners and losers among contractors, this dynamic can lead to a “pay to play” scenario among the less ethical on both sides of the contracting relationship.

The volume and similarity of government corruption cases are striking. In the most recent FEMA case, the contractor provided the government official with helicopter rides, hotel accommodations, first-class airfare, and the use of a credit card in exchange for choosing his company to repair Puerto Rico’s electrical grid. Last year, charges were brought against the defense contractors who allegedly provided Navy officials with gifts and luxury items that included cash, checks, retail gift cards and flat-screen televisions in return for $6 million in government contracts.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.govexec.com/management/2019/09/insidious-threat-pay-play/159935/

May 6, 2019 By AMK

Despite the ‘potential ethical violations,’ JEDI contract moves forward

In the wake of an ethics investigation, Pentagon officials have selected two cloud service providers to move forward as potential candidates in the Department of Defense’s $10 billion Joint Enterprise Defense Initiative cloud services contract.

The selection of those providers, Amazon Web Services and Microsoft, came after an Oracle lawsuit challenging the legality of the JEDI contract process was put on hold in February to allow DoD to investigate previously unknown information about conflicts of interest.

“The department’s investigation has determined that there is no adverse impact on the integrity of the acquisition process,” DoD spokesperson Elissa Smith in a statement.

“However, the investigation also uncovered potential ethical violations, which have been further referred to DoD [inspector general]. There are two different components of the investigation. First, DoD investigated potential conflicts of interest as they relate to the acquisition process. This portion of the investigation determined that there are no conflicts of interest that affected the integrity of the acquisition process. However, there may be potential ethical violations, which have been referred to DoD IG for further investigation.”

Keep reading article at: https://www.federaltimes.com/acquisition/2019/04/11/despite-the-potential-ethical-violations-jedi-moves-forward/

April 25, 2019 By AMK

State Dept. contracting officer indicted for bribery and procurement fraud

A 17-count indictment was unsealed today charging Zaldy N. Sabino, a contracting officer with the U.S. Department of State, with conspiracy, bribery, honest services wire fraud, and making false statements.

Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney G. Zachary Terwilliger of the Eastern District of Virginia, Inspector General Steve A. Linick of the U.S. Department of State and Assistant Director in Charge Nancy McNamara of the FBI’s Washington Field Office made the announcement.

According to the indictment, between November 2012 and early 2017, Sabino and the owner of a Turkish construction firm allegedly engaged in a bribery and procurement fraud scheme in which Sabino received at least $239,300 in cash payments from the Turkish owner while Sabino supervised multi-million dollar construction contracts awarded to the Turkish owner’s business partners and while Sabino made over a half million in structured cash deposits into his personal bank accounts. Sabino allegedly concealed his unlawful relationship by, among other things, making false statements on financial disclosure forms and during his background reinvestigation.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/state-department-contracting-officer-indicted-bribery-and-procurement-fraud

A former top human resources executive at the Department of Veterans Affairs improperly steered a contract to benefit two of his friends, the agency’s inspector general found in a recent report.

Federal employees traveling to conferences now have some clarity about whether accepting registration fees is considered an in-kind payment.

The government contracting world is deeply vulnerable to fraud, says a former federal investigator.

In the wake of an ethics investigation, Pentagon officials have selected two cloud service providers to move forward as potential candidates in the Department of Defense’s $10 billion Joint Enterprise Defense Initiative cloud services contract.

A 17-count indictment was unsealed today charging Zaldy N. Sabino, a contracting officer with the U.S. Department of State, with conspiracy, bribery, honest services wire fraud, and making false statements.

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