IG: SBA lax in removing ineligible 8(a)s

     A recent audit of about two dozen firms in the Small Business Administration’s 8(a) Business Development program found that 80% of those firms were ineligible to be in the program.

      “We found that 20 of 25 firms we reviewed should have been removed from the 8(a) program,” the SBA’s inspector general wrote in the audit.

      Those ineligible firms received $127 million in new 8(a) set-aside contracts in fiscal 2017, at the expense of eligible disadvantaged firms, the report said.

      The inspector general’s office reviewed the 15 individually-owned 8(a) companies that received the largest 8(a) set-aside contracts in fiscal 2016, totaling $461 million. The IG also reviewed 10 8(a) companies that had been previously flagged for possible ineligibility...more....