USAID | The Contracting Education Academy

May 30, 2018 By AMK

OMB wants to strengthen a learning culture in government

Amazon, Apple and Google are examples of Fortune 500 companies that are known as learning organizations. They relentlessly pursue knowledge creation and transfer, leading to improvements in products and practices. By actively managing their institutional learning, they serve their customers’ needs — and their bottom lines.

In government, on the other hand, deliberative strategic planning around learning happens far too rarely. Even though the 1993 Government Performance and Results Act requires agencies to develop strategic plans, its implementation has never met the original expectations. There are good reasons why learning approaches differ between the public and private sectors, but every organization can learn and apply that knowledge to improve results.

A few federal agencies are showing that it can be done. The Labor Department, for example, requires its operating agencies to develop learning agendas that identify high-priority research studies that those agencies would like to have done. The U.S. Agency for International Development launched a learning office with agencywide policies that encourage grantees to develop learning plans. And in just the last two years, the Small Business Administration has made notable progress, launching an evaluation office and creating an agency-wide learning agenda.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.govexec.com/excellence/promising-practices/2018/05/omb-wants-strengthen-learning-culture-government/148350/

January 10, 2018 By AMK

Pentagon task force’s $675 million in contracts to rebuild Afghanistan found wasteful

The Defense Department’s now-defunct business task force for rebuilding war-torn Afghanistan has again been found to have ineffectively spent its budget, devoting more than half of $675 million in contract obligations to indirect or support costs and favoring sole-source providers, a watchdog found.

The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction on Tuesday released its latest critique of the Pentagon’s Task Force for Business and Stability Operations, which worked from 2010-2014 to hire companies to help the Afghans with economic development in such areas as mining, irrigation and banking.

That body was disbanded in 2015, with many of its projects incomplete or turned over to the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.govexec.com/contracting/2018/01/pentagon-task-forces-675-million-contracts-rebuild-afghanistan-found-wasteful/145077

June 23, 2017 By AMK

Deputy director of USAID pleads guilty to charges in contract-steering scheme

BethAnne Moskov, a deputy director for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), has pled guilty to charges stemming from a contract-steering scheme.

Moskov pled guilty in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States and making false statements to law enforcement. The plea agreement, which is subject to Court approval, requires the Court to impose a sentence within the range of no prison time to a year and a day in prison. Sentencing is scheduled for August 28, 2017.

According to the plea documents, Moskov worked from July 2012 through August 2016 as the USAID Deputy Director for the Office of Health, Infectious Disease, and Nutrition. Her office was located at USAID headquarters in Washington, D.C. The charges involve her dealings with a person identified in the documents as “Co-Conspirator A,” a close personal friend who worked as a consultant for various projects for USAID, as well as the private sector. Moskov and “Co-Conspirator A” took trips together and was the man of honor at her wedding.

In June 2014, according to the plea documents, Moskov wanted to hire “Co-Conspirator A” for a consultancy contract. She was the approving and selecting official for the contract, and the person to be chosen for the work was to report to her. Moskov provided internal government document templates needed for the consultancy to “Co-Conspirator A.” In an e-mail at the time, Moskov told him that “we need to jump thru a few hoops and will go through the motions but you will (sic) selected in the job – any time you spend putting this together add it as days to your consultancy … thanks peaches.”

In July 2014, “Co-Conspirator A” prepared a Selection Memo and other consultancy documents from the templates for Moskov. The Selection Memo listed “Co-Conspirator A” as the highest ranked candidate. Later that month, Moskov selected him as the “best consultant to fill the project order.” The Selection Memo included language taken verbatim from the version provided by “Co-Conspirator A.” “Co-Conspirator A” was paid a total of $22,480.85 for the consulting project, according to the plea documents.

Additionally, during an investigation, law enforcement learned that Moskov had used her government e-mail account in 2012 to ask “Co-Conspirator A” for a loan to help her in financing a house. “Co-Conspirator A” agreed to loan her the funds. In an e-mail, Moskov thanked “Co-Conspirator A” for the loan and wrote, ““Send me your CV again and let me float it here with the 2 missions as well as some of my contacts around town … there is SOOO much work going on here! I got to get you in the system.” “Co-Conspirator A” wired her $7,100.

In December 2015, Special Agents with the USAID Office of Inspector General interviewed Moskov at USAID headquarters. She falsely stated that she had repaid the entire $7,100 loan from “Co-Conspirator A.” In reality, she had paid nothing back.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/deputy-director-usaid-pleads-guilty-federal-charges-contract-steering-scheme

August 5, 2016 By AMK

Justice Dept. sues former executives for false claims on reconstruction contracts in Afghanistan and Iraq

As a follow-up to a $50.6 million corporate settlement in 2010, the U.S. Government now has filed suit under the False Claims Act against two former executives of Louis Berger Group, Inc. (LBG) for conspiring to overbill the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and other government agencies for costs incurred performing reconstruction contracts in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other countries.

The government’s complaint alleges that Derish M. Wolff and Salvatore J. Pepe, respectively the former CEO and CFO of LBG, designed and directed various accounting schemes that resulted in the company billing the government for indirect overhead costs at inflated rates.

According to the complaint, Wolff and Pepe shifted portions of salaries of LBG executives and accounting personnel from contracts paid for by foreign and state governments and private entities to contracts paid for by the United States. Wolff and Pepe allegedly certified the false rates and submitted them to the government in annual financial reports.

In November 2010, the U.S. resolved criminal and civil claims against LBG arising from this conduct. At that time, LBG entered into a Deferred Prosecution Agreement and paid $50.6 million to resolve False Claims Act allegations. Pepe pleaded guilty on that date to a charge of conspiracy to defraud the government and was later sentenced to one year probation. Wolff pleaded guilty to the same charge on Dec. 12, 2014, and was later sentenced to 12 months of home confinement and required to pay a $4.5 million fine for his role in the scheme. The complaint filed on July 28, 2016 asserts civil claims against Wolff and Pepe.

The government filed its complaint in a lawsuit originally brought under the qui tam, or whistleblower, provisions of the False Claims Act, by Harold Salomon, an LBG accountant from March 2002 to October 2005. Under the Act, a private citizen can sue on behalf of the U.S. and share in any recovery. The U.S. is also entitled to intervene in the lawsuit, as it has done in this case.

This matter is being handled by the Civil Division’s Commercial Litigation Branch and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland, with investigative support from the FBI, USAID’s Office of Inspector General, the Defense Criminal Investigative Service and the Defense Contract Audit Agency.

The case is United States ex rel. Harold Salomon v. Derish M. Wolff & Salvatore J. Pepe, Civ. No. RWT-06-1970 (D. Md.). The claims asserted against Wolff and Pepe are allegations only to the extent not admitted in their criminal pleas, and there has been no determination of civil liability.

May 11, 2016 By AMK

USAID uses new contracting technique to try to lower barriers to entry

The United States Agency for International Development has started accepting applications for a $30 million grand challenge calling on innovators to submit ideas to combat Zika and “the disease threats of tomorrow.”

“To get ahead of infectious diseases like Zika, we need to move quickly to find and scale new tools and transformative solutions,” USAID Administrator Gayle Smith said in a statement.

The grand challenge is an addendum to the to the USAID Development Innovation Accelerator Broad Agency Announcement for Global Health, and is an example of how the agency is increasingly turning to a contracting technique used elsewhere in the U.S. government to see if the model might work to involve new actors in addressing development challenges.

As USAID looks to partner with a more diverse group of actors, the agency is contending with regulatory restrictions that can be cumbersome or limiting. The Broad Agency Announcement, or BAA, may be a way to address that challenge. The BAA is a new way for the agency to communicate with partners to design solutions before determining what procurement tool may be the best fit.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.devex.com/news/usaid-uses-new-contracting-technique-to-try-to-lower-barriers-to-entry-87858

BethAnne Moskov, a deputy director for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), has pled guilty to charges stemming from a contract-steering scheme.

The United States Agency for International Development has started accepting applications for a $30 million grand challenge calling on innovators to submit ideas to combat Zika and “the disease threats of tomorrow.”

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