New Congress Steps Up Oversight of Procurement The Democrat-controlled Congress is moving forward with oversight hearings on federal contracting practices. A Senate Armed Services subcommittee has begun looking into the Defense Department’s use of GSA schedules and other interagency contracts. On the House side, Chairman Henry Waxman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee has scheduled his first hearing on contracting in Iraq for Feb. 6. The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee’s Subcommittee on Readiness, Daniel Akaka of Hawaii, said investigators had turned up “case after case of waste and abuse” in DOD’s use of interagency contracts. At the subcommittee’s Jan. 17 hearing, DOD Acting Inspector General Thomas Kimble testified: “The contracting problems stem from hurried buys with little or no planning, mostly due to DOD program managers attempting to quickly obligate funds about to expire. “We found that DOD officials skipped basic planning and contracting fundamentals, such as conducting market research, competing acquisitions, determining price reasonableness, conducting surveillance on services received and obtaining required approvals for construction and leasing contracts.” Gimble said DOD buyers told his auditors it was faster to use interagency contracts and “they could generally get the contractor they wanted.” He said a “significant” amount of money has been wasted, but did not give a figure. The IG examined DOD purchases through GSA and the Interior Department’s interagency contracting shops, GovWorks and the National Business Center. Gimble said the Interior Department had revoked “numerous contracting officer warrants” as a result of the investigation. He said DOD and GSA have already moved to stop “parking” money in GSA accounts for use in a future fiscal year. DOD lawyers determined that was illegal and GSA has returned $600 million in expired funds to the department so far. The Readiness Subcommmittee has set another hearing Jan 31, with witnesses to include Shay Assad, director of defense procurement and acquisition policy; Paul Denett, head of OMB’s Office of Federal Procurement Policy; and Marcia Madsen, chair of the Acquisition Advisory Panel that recently completed its report on federal contracting policies. (SAA, 1/12) House Oversight Committee Chairman Waxman has called three witnesses to testify Feb. 6 on contracting in Iraq: L. Paul Bremer, former head of the Coalition Provisional Authority that governed the country after the fall of Saddam Hussein; Timothy Carney, who has just been named coordinator for Iraqi Transitional Assistance; and Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq Reconstruction, the government’s chief watchdog on spending in that country.