A contract worth up to $579,000 was awarded to the consultant's firm in September.
Though small by government standards, the counter-narcotics contract illustrates the government's steady move away from relying on competition to secure the best deals for products and services.
And on and on it goes. The Bush administration doesn't, uh, have time to govern normally. Competition (free market!) is too much trouble. Or something like that.
The counter-narcotics contract comes from the Department of Homeland Security. Which came first? The urge to reward one's friends or the design for a new Department of Homeland Security. Tough question.
Robert O'Harrow, an investigative reporter at the Washington Post who has been following federal no-bid contracts for a long time, has found yet another non-competitive contract awared by the Department of Homeland Security. We admit a special interest here: we've been watching indications of DHS corruption as the "border fence" plans are finalized.
A recent congressional report estimated that federal spending on contracts awarded without "full and open" competition has tripled, to $207 billion, since 2000, with a $60 billion increase last year alone. The category includes deals in which officials take advantage of provisions allowing them to sidestep competition for speed and convenience and cases in which the government sharply limits the number of bidders or expands work under open-ended contracts.
Government auditors say the result is often higher prices for taxpayers and an undue reliance on a limited number of contractors.
"The rapid growth in no-bid and limited-competition contracts has made full and open competition the exception, not the rule," according to the report, by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
