Why We Performed This Audit
The GSA Office of Inspector General received a hotline complaint that alleged unduly restricted competition in the award of Task Order Number 47HAA024F0028 (information technology [IT] research licenses and consulting services task order). Based on that allegation, we initiated an audit. Our audit objective was to determine if GSA’s Office of Administrative Services (OAS), Office of Internal Acquisition (OIA) awarded this task order in accordance with the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), the GSA Acquisition Manual (GSAM), blanket purchase agreement (BPA) requirements, and other applicable internal policies.
What We Found
OIA awarded an invalid task order for IT research licenses and consulting services that did not comply with the FAR, the GSAM, BPA requirements, and other applicable internal policies. Specifically, OIA made an improper sole-source award by issuing an invalid task order against a U.S. Department of Defense BPA that GSA was not authorized to use. In addition, GSA supported the sole-source award using a flawed limited-source justification that was not approved prior to the award and was not posted publicly. Further, the technical evaluation and price analysis for the awarded task order were flawed. Finally, reviews of the task order were either deficient or were not performed.
What We Recommend
We recommend that the GSA Chief Administrative Services Officer:
- Ensure that justifications for other than full and open competition are completed prior to award and publicly posted.
- Enforce accountability with OAS personnel who did not comply with the FAR, the GSAM, and OIA internal policies in the award of the audited task order.
- Revise OIA’s Internal Quality Assurance Review policy to reduce delays, and employ a risk-based sampling methodology when selecting contracts for review.
- Establish an OAS policy to supplement GSA Order ADM 5000.4B, Office of General Counsel Legal Review, to reduce the monetary threshold for legal review commensurate with the monetary values of OIA contracts.
In his response to our report, the GSA Chief Administrative Services Officer agreed with our recommendations. OAS’s response can be found in its entirety in Appendix B.
