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April 9, 2018 By AMK

Paper submittals will soon be required of all SAM.gov registrants

Effective April 27, 2018, the General Services Administration (GSA) will be requiring each entity that wants to renew or update their electronic registration in the System for Award Management (SAM) to mail-in an original, signed notarized letter that confirms the identity of the account’s authorized administrator.

This comes as a follow-up to an announcement make about two and a half weeks ago that GSA is engaged in “an active investigation into alleged third-party fraudulent activity” within SAM.

SAM is essentially the vendor database of the federal government.  GSA is in the process of integrating a total of ten databases within SAM.

At present, before a new SAM entity registration is activated, the entity establishing the new record in SAM must submit an original, signed notarized letter identifying the authorized “entity administrator” who is associated with the entity’s DUNS number.  With GSA’s latest announcement, the notarized letter also will be required of all existing SAM registrants who wish to update or renew their record.

The alleged breach of the SAM database was identified by GSA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG), and there is ongoing concern that vendors’ financial information and points of contact could be exposed.  This creates risk that grant and contract payments could be diverted.

In GSA’s first announcement of the problem, GSA advised that “entities should contact their Federal agency awarding official if they find that payments, which were due their entity from a Federal agency, have been paid to a bank account other than the entity’s bank account.”   SAM contains bank routing information on each entity.  GSA’s advice was later updated to say: “If an entity suspects a payment due them from a Federal agency was paid to a bank account other than their own, they should contact the Federal Service Desk.”

The Federal Service Desk can be contacted by phone at 866-606-8220 (toll free) or 334-206-7828 (internationally), Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. (EDT).

The notarized letter, on company stationery, is to be mailed to the Federal Service Desk.  Details for the letter appear at: https://www.fsd.gov/fsd-gov/answer.do?sysparm_kbid=d2e67885db0d5f00b3257d321f96194b&sysparm_search=kb0013183.

Update: GSA has produced a template for the notarized letter.  It is available at: SAM_Notary_Letter_Template_4.12.18_GSA_version

 

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: breach, cyber incidents, cyberattacks, financial risk, fraud, GSA, hack, SAM, vendor registration

March 23, 2018 By AMK

SAM hacked: New vendor registrations require paper documentation

The General Services Administration reports that there is “an active investigation into alleged third-party fraudulent activity” within the System for Award Management (SAM).

SAM is essentially the vendor database of the federal government.  GSA is in the process of integrating a total of ten databases within SAM.

The alleged breach was identified by GSA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG).  GSA is concerned that vendor’s financial information and points of contact could be exposed.

GSA reports that entities whose financial information has changed within the last year are in the process of being notified and are being advised to validate their registration information, particularly their financial information.  GSA’s notification process began on March 22, 2018.

An “entity” is any company, business, or organization who has registered within SAM as a federal contractor or would-be federal contractor.

In the announcement of the breach, GSA advises that “entities should contact their Federal agency awarding official if they find that payments, which were due their entity from a Federal agency, have been paid to a bank account other than the entity’s bank account.”   SAM contains bank routing information on each entity.

New SAM registration procedures are now in effect, presumably temporarily.  An original, signed notarized letter identifying the authorized Entity Administrator for the entity associated with the DUNS number must be submitted before a new SAM entity registration will be activated.

Update: GSA has produced a template for the notarized letter.  It is available at: SAM_Notary_Letter_Template_4.12.18_GSA_version

Information on GSA’s work-around SAM registration process is detailed on the Federal Service Desk’s web site at: https://www.fsd.gov/fsd-gov/answer.do?sysparm_kbid=d2e67885db0d5f00b3257d321f96194b&sysparm_search=sam

 

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: breach, cyber incidents, cyberattacks, financial risk, fraud, GSA, hack, SAM, vendor registration

February 6, 2018 By AMK

Massive Pentagon agency lost track of hundreds of millions of dollars

One of the Pentagon’s largest agencies can’t account for hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of spending, a leading accounting firm says in an internal audit obtained by POLITICO that arrives just as President Donald Trump is proposing a boost in the military budget.

Ernst & Young found that the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) failed to properly document more than $800 million in construction projects, just one of a series of examples where it lacks a paper trail for millions of dollars in property and equipment. Across the board, its financial management is so weak that its leaders and oversight bodies have no reliable way to track the huge sums it’s responsible for, the firm warned in its initial audit of the massive Pentagon purchasing agent.

The audit raises new questions about whether the Defense Department can responsibly manage its $700 billion annual budget — let alone the additional billions that Trump plans to propose this month. The department has never undergone a full audit despite a congressional mandate — and to some lawmakers, the messy state of the Defense Logistics Agency’s books indicates one may never even be possible.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/05/pentagon-logistics-agency-review-funds-322860

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: accountability, Army Corps of Engineers, audit, construction, DLA, DoD, financial risk, spending controls

March 11, 2014 By AMK

Unauditable DoD, interagency activity are key financial issues

Major financial management problems kept the Government Accountability Office from providing an audit opinion on the federal government’s financial statements for fiscals 2013 and 2012.

“The federal government is not able to demonstrate the reliability of significant portions” of its consolidated financial statements for those years, the GAO says in a Feb. 27 report, citing material weaknesses in internal controls.

The Defense Department’s continued failure to produce auditable financial statements is one of the main reasons that GAO can’t offer an audit opinion, the report says. Another is the government’s inability to accurately reconcile activity between federal agencies.

Improper payments, and the inability of federal agencies to know their full extent, also represent a material weakness, the report says.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.fiercegovernment.com/story/unauditable-dod-interagency-activity-are-key-financial-issues/2014-03-04 

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: audit, DHS, DoD, financial risk, GAO, inter-agency contracting, interagency acquisition, interagency contracts

February 18, 2013 By AMK

AT&L chief provides thoughts on fixed-price contracts

The use of firm fixed-price (FFP) contracts in product development situations have had a storied past within Defense Department contracting and elsewhere.  Application of the FFP contracting strategy where product development is unproven has tended to create situations where neither the government nor the contractor has the flexibility needed to make adjustments as they learn more about what is feasible and affordable as well as what needs to be done to achieve a design that meets requirements during a product’s design and testing phases.

Frank Kendall, DoD Undersecretary for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics (AT&L) now seeks to provide guidance on this subject, including on the use of fixed-price incentive firm (FPIF) contracts.

In an article scheduled to appear in the March-April 2013 issue of Defense AT&L magazine, Kendall writes:

  • “The choice of appropriate contract types is very situationally dependent, and a number of factors must be taken into account to determine the best contract type to use.  From the perspective of both industry and the government, it makes a good deal of difference whether the Defense Department asks for Cost type, Fixed-Price Incentive (FPI), or Firm Fixed Price (FFP) proposals.  In the original Better Buying Power (BBP) initiatives, although [Deputy Secretary of Defense] Dr. [Ashton] Carter and I encouraged greater use of FPI, we also included the caveat: ‘where appropriate.'”

The Contracting Education Academy at Georgia Tech has obtained an advance copy of Undersecretary Kendall’s full article, and it can be viewed at: Use of FPIF Contracts in Development & Production – Kendall_Mar_Apr_2013.

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: AT&L, Better Buying Power, cost, DoD, FFP, financial risk, fixed price, FPIF, incentive, product development, risk assessment, technology development

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