Oversight | The Contracting Education Academy

August 15, 2019 By AMK

OMB, GSA to oversee ‘technology business management’ buys

The federal government is taking concrete steps to require agencies to use Technology Business Management (TBM) methodology and data standards to measure IT costs and create a cross-agency framework for understanding IT spending.

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the General Services Administration (GSA) are teaming up to create a review board to supervise agency procurement of TBM tools and services. Agencies are required to adopt TBM and to go through the coming Task Order Review Board (TORB) as part of the acquisition process.

At stake is how $80 billion to $90 billion in federal IT spending is measured and managed.

The TORB is set up to exercise considerable authority over TBM acquisition, providing technical expertise and documents to support procurement and ultimately approval to proceed with an acquisition or revisions to an agency’s TBM plans “to address deficiencies or concerns,” according to contracting documents.

Keep reading this article at: https://fcw.com/articles/2019/08/07/tbm-review-board-mazmanian.aspx?m=1

July 25, 2019 By AMK

Audit: Pentagon acquisition reform requires more leadership attention

The Defense Department has made progress implementing acquisition reforms in recent years, but leadership needs to pay more attention for meaningful change to take place, according to an audit released this week by the Government Accountability Office.

The audit was completed at the request of the House and Senate Armed Services committees, which sought to determine whether and how the Pentagon was handling numerous acquisition reforms included in the 2017 and 2018 National Defense Authorization Acts.

The answers are a mixed bag, according to GAO auditors.

On one hand, military departments have taken on a larger share of the decision-making authority for major multibillion-dollar, multiyear defense acquisitions since 2016. That year, the Office of the Secretary of Defense oversaw 30 major defense acquisition programs, compared to 58 overseen by military departments. As of March, OSD only oversaw nine major defense acquisition programs, while military departments oversaw 80.

OSD oversees only those programs that are high-risk, joint or had significant cost or schedule growth, like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program or the Army’s Integrated Air and Missile Defense program.

Keep reading article at: https://www.nextgov.com/policy/2019/06/audit-pentagon-acquisition-reform-requires-more-leadership-attention/157548/

June 5, 2019 By AMK

A Pentagon contractor’s 9,400% profit on a half-inch metal pin is challenged

As the Pentagon weighs whether to recommend legislation to require more disclosure by contractors, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform will review the audit and TransDigm’s pricing policies in a hearing on Wednesday.

The inspector general’s report “exposes how a company entrusted with supporting our military men and women took advantage of American taxpayers by overcharging the government more than $16 million” in parts sales sold between 2015 and 2017, Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings said in a statement. The hearing will “investigate whether these pricing issues are more widespread, and demand answers,” he said.

From 2013 through 2015, according to the audit, the contractor increased the price of a valve that opens and closes to change the pressure of fuel moving through an engine to $9,801 from $543. In those years, TransDigm also charged $1,443 each for a “non-vehicular clutch disk” that cost $32 to make.

Planes, Copters

The Pentagon’s inspector general first raised pricing concerns over TransDigm in a 2006 report, followed by the one this year that was released in redacted form in February.

TransDigm manufactures spare parts for airplanes and helicopters including the AH-64 Apache, C-17 Globemaster III, F-16 Fighting Falcon and the CH-47 Chinook. From April 2012 through January 2017, DOD issued 4,942 contracts valued at $471 million to TransDigm.

Liza Sabol, a spokeswoman for the Cleveland-based company, said in an email “that we are not providing comments on specific questions related to the IG report.”

Keep reading article at: http://amp.timeinc.net/fortune/2019/05/14/transdigm-pentagon-costs

December 12, 2018 By AMK

Oversight of U.S. military’s food suppliers called into question after fraud indictment

Executives from a company responsible for providing food and water for deployed U.S. troops in Afghanistan have been charged with defrauding the government and creating a fake construction site to overstate progress on an $8 billion contract, the Justice Department said in a recently filed indictment.

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.

On Nov. 27, the Justice Department charged Abdul Huda Farouki, Mazen Farouki and Salah Maarouf — three Virginia residents who worked with a Dubai-based company called Anham Fzco — with defrauding the U.S. military under an estimated $8 billion military supply contract.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/12/08/oversight-us-militarys-food-suppliers-called-into-question-after-fraud-indictment/

September 25, 2018 By AMK

3 big problems continue to dog federal procurement

Congress and the executive branch have worked for years to improve the quality of and reduce costs for federal acquisition, but some problems continue to hamper many agencies, according to a Sept. 12 Government Accountability Office report.

“Acquisition reform has been on everyone’s agenda for many, many years, decades. There have been proposals in the Congress, there has been changes to the regulations. This has been a very, very active area for a long time,” said Bill Woods, director on the Contracting and National Security Acquisitions Team at GAO, in an agency podcast.

The report evaluated federal agency acquisition improvements against 89 recommendations made by the Acquisition Advisory Panel in 2007 and divided the areas of improvement into three “buckets” that represent the acquisition life cycle: requirements and definitions; competition and pricing; and contractor oversight.

“One is in the requirements, definition process of actually deciding. What is it does the agency want? What does it need, and what’s the best way of getting what we need?” said Woods.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.federaltimes.com/acquisition/2018/09/17/3-big-problems-continue-to-dog-federal-procurement/

The federal government is taking concrete steps to require agencies to use Technology Business Management (TBM) methodology and data standards to measure IT costs and create a cross-agency framework for understanding IT spending.

The Defense Department has made progress implementing acquisition reforms in recent years, but leadership needs to pay more attention for meaningful change to take place, according to an audit released this week by the Government Accountability Office.

As the Pentagon weighs whether to recommend legislation to require more disclosure by contractors, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform will review the audit and TransDigm’s pricing policies in a hearing on Wednesday.

Planes, Copters

Congress and the executive branch have worked for years to improve the quality of and reduce costs for federal acquisition, but some problems continue to hamper many agencies, according to a Sept. 12 Government Accountability Office report.

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