The Government Accountability Office has found that the Defense Department awarded approximately 444,500 contracts valued at more than $230 billion to women- and minority-owned businesses between fiscal years 2010 and 2016.GAO said in a report published Monday fixed-price contracts for goods and services represented at least 80 percent, or approximately $184 billion, of the total obligated funds over the six-year period.
The study showed that DoD’s spending on contracts awarded to such businesses dropped by 12 percent from FY 2010 to FY 2016.
The Pentagon awarded approximately $14 billion in technical and professional engineering contracts and over $3 billion worth of software contracts to minority- and women-owned companies during the period, according to the report.
GAO used data from the Federal Procurement Data System-Next Generation platform to examine the department’s acquisition trends in compliance with a provision of the fiscal 2017 National Defense Authorization Act.
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