The Department of Defense and the Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Federal Procurement Policy missed the deadline to implement laws designed to protect national security from the risks brought by consulting services providers that serve potential U.S. adversaries such as China, according to the Government Accountability Office.
From 2019 to 2023, Congress enacted five laws to revise federal acquisition regulations and policies to address the potential risks related to organizational conflicts of interests and foreign ownership, control or influence linked to the awarding of contracts to consultants but the DOD and the OFFP have yet to implement three of the said laws, namely the Fiscal Year 2020 National Defense Authorization Act Section 847, the Preventing Organizational Conflicts of Interest in Federal Acquisition Act and the FY 2024 NDAA Section 812, GAO said in a report published on Thursday.
The government watchdog found that the DOD and the Department of Homeland Security accounted for over half of the $500 billion spent on consulting services contracts from FY 2019 to 2023, raising national security concerns as the contracts involved work related to defense analyses or intelligence.
To address the issues, GAO recommended that the secretary of defense take steps to ensure prompt updates are made in response to legislation on how acquisition personnel use FOCI information when awarding or modifying contracts and that the OMB director ensure prompt updates are made to the Federal Acquisition Regulation.
