The Environmental Protection Agency is overpaying contractors due to poor contract management controls, according to an audit released Monday by the agency’s office of inspector general.
The audit—conducted from March 2018 to February 2019—examined 11 of 64 total invoices made through a single task order on a $100 million IT contract awarded in 2011 to SRA International following a response to an anonymous hotline complaint about invoices and payments. According to the audit’s “limited review,” all 11 invoices EPA IG tested within the task order “did not comply with contract requirements,” leading to an overbilling of more than $5,100 paid to the contractor.
“Our limited review noted $5,158.29 for an unallowable fixed fee billed and paid by the EPA,” the audit states. “However, without adequate review of all invoices submitted under [the task order], the EPA does not know whether there are further unallowable costs that it has paid for under the task order.”
The IG cites various reasons issues occurred, including staffing problems, high turnover, poor contract file management disorganization and inadequate oversight.
Keep reading article at: https://www.nextgov.com/it-modernization/2019/05/shoddy-contracting-practices-lead-overbilling-epa/157143/
The allegations came four years after the company’s predecessor pleaded guilty to criminal charges that it inflated prices for basic items that it sold to the U.S. military. Both cases emphasize how the U.S. military has struggled to curb abuses of U.S. defense spending in America’s longest-running foreign war as the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan enters its 17th year, analysts said.
Inchcape is a marine services contractor headquartered in the United Kingdom.
The case was handled jointly by the Civil Division’s Commercial Litigation Branch and the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the District of Columbia, with assistance from the Department of the Navy and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.
Bechtel National Inc., Bechtel Corp., URS Corp. (predecessor in interest to AECOM Global II LLC) and URS Energy and Construction Inc. (now known as AECOM Energy and Construction Inc.) were charged with making false statements and claims to the Department of Energy (DOE). Specifically, the contractors were cited for supplying deficient nuclear quality materials, services, and testing at the Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) at DOE’s Hanford Site near Richland, Washington.
The allegations resolved by the settlement were initially brought in a lawsuit filed under the qui tam, or whistleblower, provisions of the False Claims Act by three individuals — Gary Brunson, Donna Busche, and Walter Tamosaitis — who worked on the WTP project. The False Claims Act permits private parties to sue on behalf of the United States when they believe that a party has submitted false claims for government funds, and to receive a share of any recovery. The Act also permits the government to intervene in such a lawsuit, as it did in part in this case. The whistleblowers’ reward has not yet been determined.
