GAO: Alaska Contracts Ripe for Abuse

[Judi Lynn]

GAO: Alaska Contracts Ripe for Abuse
Tuesday April 11, 2006 11:01 PM
By HOPE YEN
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - From Iraq reconstruction to Hurricane Katrina, poor contracting oversight enables Alaska Native corporations to capitalize on multimillion-dollar no-bid deals at a potential cost to taxpayers and small businesses, a federal audit says.

A draft report by the Government Accountability Office, obtained Tuesday, indicates gaps in the overseeing of federal contracts, which have boomed in recent years in part due to provisions backed by Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska.

The review of 16 no-bid contracts found that administration agencies routinely picked Alaskan firms - which can be designated legally as ``small and disadvantaged,'' regardless of their size - to bypass burdensome competition requirements and fill small business quotas.

At the same time, government officials did little to determine if the Alaskan firms might be gaining an unfair competitive advantage or serving as illegal fronts for large businesses that were doing a majority of the work.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5749311,00.html