Waste and abuse in contracting are rampant in the Department of Homeland Security, according to a two-part series in the Washington Post. Two weeks ago the New York Times ran a related story on the ineffectiveness of many of security systems DHS procured. All three articles are complementary. Whereas the Times narrows in on billions wasted on systems that don't work (there is a bit on the lack of competition, including procurement requests naming specific contractors), the Post concentrates on how this happened.
Here's some examples cited by the Post:
- "The contract to hire airport passenger screeners grew to $741 million from $104 million in less than a year. The screeners are failing to detect weapons at roughly the same rate as shortly after the attacks."
- "The contract for airport bomb-detection machines ballooned to at least $1.2 billion from $508 million over 18 months. The machines have been hampered by high false-alarm rates."
- "Radiation-detection machines worth a total of a half-billion dollars deployed to screen trucks and cargo containers at ports and borders have trouble distinguishing between highly enriched uranium and common household products. The problem has prompted costly plans to replace the machines."
Though wasted taxpayer dollars and gaping holes in security are serious problems, they are really symptoms of the government's perilously crippled ability to oversee its own procurement of goods and services. The real story is how and why government officials now refer to corporations as "partners," rather than "contractors."
D. Kent Goodger, a veteran contracting official, put it simply to the Post, "We have allowed the contractors to totally take over the process, and as a result, the costs are getting totally inflated."
Federal Acquisition Regulations, a set of contracting oversight guidelines, were sidelined to speed up the process. Far, far too few government officials actually oversee the contractors. DHS's Office of Procurement Operations has 19 employees overseeing an average of $101 million each, while the Coast Guard, a DHS component with its own contract office has 332 officials each reviewing contracts worth an average of about $6 million. And among those few oversight officials, not enough have appropriate expertise to do their job. The GAO found that only 22% of DHS contracts are overseen by those who are qualified to do so.
Because there was little oversight, systems were acquired that don't work well (if they were acquired at all). Now DHS has to go back and replace them. Was time saved? Not really. Because it was done wrong on a massive scale (think billions of dollars) time and money were and are being wasted.
It's a long article, but start off with part one in the Post's series. Go read. And then check out POGO's contract oversight archives for more.
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