(Washington, D.C.)—“After all of that time and all of that money, the Commercial Activities Panel (CAP) did little more than dust off a FAR-based best value proposal that has been on contractor wish-lists for years,” the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) will point out in testimony before the House Government Reform Subcommittee on Technology and Procurement Policy. The hearing will take place:
Thursday, July 18, 2002
2 p.m., Room 2154
Rayburn House Office Building
In her testimony, Jacque Simon, Director of AFGE’s Public Policy Department, will emphasize the many critical problems with federal service contracting that have not been addressed by CAP. Specifically, the CAP Report:
- Does not recommend a competitive process that will be faster
- Does not recommend a competitive process that results in the best quality at the lowest price for taxpayers
- Does not address the need to force contractors to adhere to the government’s cost accounting standards
- Does not provide mechanisms to track the cost or size of the contractor workforce
- Does not ensure federal employees will be able to compete in defense of their own jobs, for new work and for contractor work
- Refuses to close loopholes allowing work to be contracted out without any public-private competition
- Does nothing to strengthen the federal government’s acquisition workforce
“Pro-contractor lawmakers used the panel’s existence as a rationale for blocking much-needed and long-overdue reforms of federal service contracting,” Simon will add.
She will urge Congress to pass meaningful reforms that track the cost of the government’s contractor workforce, provide federal employees with the opportunity to compete for their own jobs and are in the best interest of the people who foot the bill—the taxpayers of this nation.