Highlights from the December 2007 Issue of
Government Services Insider
Posted on December 3, 2007
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Steve Charles: IT Industry In Dark On What's Proper As
"Alliancegate" Investigations Roll On
We've commented before on the implications of the three
ongoing Justice Department suits against big IT companies'
business practices in their "alliances." We
recently talked with Steve Charles, a leading expert on
commercial IT hardware and software sold into the federal
market, about the implications for his clients, and for
large systems integrators, whether they've been sued or not.
He suggests where companies may be most vulnerable and what
industry should do.
Are You Ready For More Business Ethics?
You can never have too much of a good thing. And doubts
about the industry's ethics, courtesy of a very small number
of bad actors and some good companies' infrequent lapses,
clouds everyone's reputation. So, the government is here to
help. Alan Chvotkin describes a recent final regulation that
requires firms to have a written ethics program. But to top
that, the FAR Council proposed a reg in November that would
require you to turn yourself in if you think your firm has
done anything criminal. And you better be fast about it, or
that could lead to additional counts in an indictment.
Chvotkin provides some practical steps to address the new
and prospective requirements.
Indicators (implications of these events for firms are
discussed in the full issue)
- Signs of government's ability to manage hit a low
point with the issuance of an Executive Order that sends
senior executives and political officials back to
management kindergarten regarding program management. A
cousin of the PART ratings, the new requirements are
capable of snaring contractors.
- We read that an Air Force official told Charles
Reichers, just before his apparent suicide, that she was
"locked and loaded" to help him deal with the
public discovery that he had charged to a contract
without working on it at Concurrent Technologies. He was
put in this position by the government, desperate to pay
him before his appointment as the second-ranking
acquisition position in the Air Force became official.
And these are the people who will oversee, among other
deals, the Air Force tanker deal that created the
opening Reichers filled after Darleen Druyun went to
jail.
- Hillary's loaded for bear in Alaska. Sen. Clinton
discovers the juicy procurement preference enjoyed by
Alaskan Native Corporations, and she read a DoD IG
report on a Chenaga Technology Services Corp. contract
award of nearly half a billion dollars in 2003 on a
sole-source basis. The IG said the award was in error,
but the Senator wants the IG to investigate the
possibility of unearned award fees for Chenaga, even
though the IG wasn't asked to analyze the quality of
performance.
- Senator Schumer strides into the oversight vacuum
after DHS dithering and delay in acquiring vital
radiation detectors. Since he views the three suppliers
as part of the problem, the senator would like the
companies to share some of the costs associated with
further product tests. He'd also like DHS to consider
other suppliers.
- Don't let the door hit them in the butt on the way
out... EMC Corp. and Canon joined Sun Microsystems in
abandoning key GSA schedule contracts. We keep hearing
that their problem is with the audits by the GSA IG to
determine whether the firms have complied with contract
requirements to disclose pricing policies and prices
given other customers. Many companies find this hard to
do because of their own internal systems, and some have
been late and incomplete. Unfortunately, the departures
from the schedules correlate nicely with doubts raised
about industry practices in Alliancegate.
- In-sourcing gone bad at EEOC—we told you so.
Our August issue chronicled how EEOC decided to pull the
plug on a 60-person contract performed by Vangent
(formerly Pearson Government Solutions) to run the
agency's national contact center (phone and email) from
one site. With AFGE pressure, and no contract funding
requested in the FY08 budget, the commissioners decided
to have government employees do the job. Now, EEOC is
warning that service may be degraded for months while
the agency figures out how to do the job. Your tax
dollars at work.
