Missteps found in awarding Katrina deals
By HOPE YEN, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 22 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration has shown little progress — and in some cases backtracked — on its pledge to do a better job in awarding contracts to small, Gulf Coast businesses for Hurricane Katrina work, a congressional analysis shows.
The review of federal contracts from five government agencies, conducted by the House Small Business Committee, is the latest to document missteps in the award of billions of dollars of lucrative government work since the 2005 storm.
The findings were provided Wednesday to The Associated Press in advance of a hearing by the committee Thursday at which officials from the five agencies were to testify about the contract awarding system.
The committee's review found that small businesses in Louisiana had an overall net loss of $8.9 million in contracting dollars since April, when the agencies reaffirmed their commitment to give smaller companies a share of the work. The loss was due in part to a decision at the Homeland Security Department to modify several existing agreements instead of awarding significant new contracts.
In addition, the review found the five agencies — Homeland Security, General Services Administration, Defense, Veterans Affairs and Small Business Administration — had claimed falsely that 259 contracts were awarded to small businesses when in fact they went to large companies or ineligible recipients. That created the false impression that more than $95 million in contracts was awarded to small companies, when they actually went elsewhere.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070802/ap_on_go_co/katrina_contracts
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