However, most departments of the DoD already have safeguards in place against PCI, and âa number of program managersâ¦expressed concern that adding new safeguards will increase costs for the government and are unnecessary since government officialsânot contractorsâare the ones ultimately making the decisions.â
The report goes on to say âDoD oversight officials as well as Office of Government Ethics (OGE) officials, however, believed additional safeguards are necessary to maintain public confidence, particularly since contractors are increasingly being involved in spending decisions, though this could be achieved through changes in policy and practice and changes in regulations rather than changes in the law.â
In other words, the push for new PCI regulations is largely a political maneuver, as protecting âpublic confidenceâ is the impetus for new regulations.
All of the 19 offices reviewed by GAO had already established safeguard procedures through PCI clauses in contracts or self-certification protocols to prevent PCI issues for contractor employees involved in the acquisition process.
Additionally, six offices had safeguards for contractors performing other types of advisory and assistance tasks. For example, the Armyâs Communications Electronics Lifecycle Management Command and the Air Forceâs Electronics Systems Center have developed contract clauses for other types of contractor employees who directly advise and assist federal decision-makers.
In fact, for contractors not involved in the acquisition process, some program managers feel that additional PCI safeguards could create a cost and oversight burden. From GAOâs report, âthese managers also stressed that government officials are ultimately responsible for decision-making, not contractor employees.â
When GAO asked DoD officials to detail cases of improper conduct involving contractor employees, âsome officials also pointed out that very few cases of actual conflicts of interest or other ethics problems involving contractor employees have been publicly identified and in most of these cases, the situations were handled informally.â
These program managers are also concerned that requiring contractor employees to abide by certain safeguards, i.e. submitting financial disclosure forms or submitting to government ethics audits âcould chase away qualified contractors from federal work.â
Basically, DoD program managers are worried that new PCI regulations will mean more paperwork and higher costs, while the government already suffers from a shortage of acquisition personnel and ballooning federal deficits threaten to cut into DoD funding.
Next week, PCI and Government Contractor Employees