GAO Finds Interagency Contracts Held Back By Data, Oversight Issues

According to a new report by the Government Accountability Office, agencies are not doing an adequate job managing contracts that relate to more than one agency.

“Interagency contracts and enterprisewide contracts should provide an advantage to the government in buying billions of dollars worth of goods and services,” the report states.  “However, data are lacking and there is limited governmentwide policy to effectively leverage, manage, and oversee these contracts. The total number of MACs and enterprisewide contracts is unknown, and existing data are not sufficiently reliable to identify them.”

Among the problems uncovered on this front by the GAO, one of the more concerning issues is the overlapping of products and services between vendors attached to the same contract.

“In addition, GWACs are the only interagency contracts requiring OMB approval,” the report states. “Agencies GAO reviewed followed statutes, acquisition regulations, and internal policies to establish and use MACs and enterprisewide contracts. Avoiding fees associated with using other agencies’ contracts and more control over procurements are some of the reasons agencies cited for establishing MACs and enterprisewide contracts. However, many of the same contractors provided similar products and services on multiple contracts–a condition that increases costs to both the vendor and the government and misses opportunities to leverage the government’s buying power.”

The report included numerous recommendations for improvement, including a directive for the Director of the Office of Management and Budget to “instruct the Administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy to ensure that departments and agencies use the survey data to accurately record these contracts in FPDS-NG.”

Posted by John Adams on Wednesday, May 26th, 2010. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry